| Tuesday, May 22 |
| Meet The Au Pairs |
Cutting Edge: Meet The Au Pairs
(Channel 4. Last night. 9PM.)
 For two years now The Apprentice has sold itself on being ‘the job interview from hell’. But last night it finally had a competitor for that title.
Having just arrived in the UK for the first time, the three hopefuls in Meet The Au Pairs had it terribly tough. For a start, they were quizzed by children.
One interview even began with “Are there rabbits in Brazil?” – it would be enough to derail even the toughest of Sugar’s business minds.
And as if it that weren’t enough they were also expected to deal with the occasional pangs of xenophobia from the locals.
 “Where’s she from? Turkey? You wouldn’t want a foreign au pair, would you? The kid’ll grow up ordering kebabs and that!” quipped one, showing a shameless disregard for modern Turkish cuisine and the very nature of the word ‘au pair’.
But on the whole this was a rather engaging documentary – and one which left us genuinely rooting for some of its subjects.
It was far from seamless, however. Take thorny matriarch Gilly Holloway, for example. Before she’d even let a potential au pair into the house she’d quiz them relentlessly and dissect their CV for anything slightly suspicious.
 “When it comes to your child’s safety, you can’t make any concessions”, she explained coldly. Quite true, but why, then, was the Cutting Edge camera crew allowed to roam unrestrained around her house without question?
But this was what Meet The Au Pairs did best. It was, at its height, a ripping exposé of the hypocrisies and shames of the modern middle class.
Like a vitriolic ‘How Clean Is Your House?’ it burrowed deep beneath the surface of apparent domestic tranquility, digging out the dirt for all to see.
All their peculiarities were on display – their inexplicable faith in feng shui; the quasi-religious importance of extra-curricular music lessons; and, sadly, their deep reluctance to really listen to their children.
 As the final installment of Channel 4’s Cutting Edge season, Meet The Au Pair’s most noteworthy achievement was putting us in the shoes of the hopeful au pairs. Like the au pairs, we, too, were left baffled. It didn’t matter that the viewer wasn’t from overseas – this was a culture shock for anyone outside of Islington. |
posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 02:14  |
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| Friday, April 13 |
| The Mark Of Cain |
The Mark of Cain (Thursday. Channel 4. 9PM)
 There’s no substitute for moral courage – that was the sermon preached by Tony Marchant’s The Mark Of Cain. The truth may hurt, but it’s a message you should never dilute. Stand up for your convictions.
Admirable sentiments, but I can't help feeling that they were somewhat undermined by Channel 4’s decision to pull the drama last week.
 The idea that a television drama (even one as powerful and captivating as The Mark Of Cain) might worsen diplomatic relationships with Iran and jeopardise the release of the captive sailors seems to be a little fantasist on the part of Channel 4.
But then who would’ve ever predicted that a few loose comments on Celebrity Big Brother would trigger an international diplomatic row?
But that’s the power of television it seems – it captures our empathy and our intrigue, and makes things so much more real.
And what better example than The Mark Of Cain – a spellbinding feature film dealing with the abuse of Iraqi detainees by British servicepersons. This was a brave and brutal drama which set out to shatter any romantic and naive notions about camaraderie. Loyalty, we found out, is a euphemism.
 But this was sophisticated stuff – it was anything but a straightforward moral onslaught against the British troops. Marchant prefers to work with real characters, and not caricatures – and he ensured that none of his characters strayed beyond redemption.
Even L/Cpl Quealy – written off by The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker as a ‘stock TV nasty’ – raised an interesting defence. ‘Forget what the public thinks: they’re all fucking hypocrites. They don’t care about the treatment of Iraqis – you don’t seem them demonstrating outside Belmarsh do you?’. True, quite true.
This was a spectacular drama which left us searching deep inside our consciences before passing verdict on its characters – were they monsters or martyrs? Posing dark Dostoyevskian questions it served as a chilling reminder of the reality of war and the power of drama. |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 02:58 |
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| Thursday, April 12 |
| The Apprentice |
The Apprentice (BBC1. Wednesday. 9PM) ‘Selling your body might make money, but does it come with deeper costs?’
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you tune in to power-dressing game-show The Apprentice, the last thing you’re looking is a philosophical conundrum to get your teeth into. But that’s Sir Alan for you – he’s always full of surprises.
This week the sour-faced entrepreneur had given each team two-hundred pounds – and their task was to double it.
 And everyone was going swimmingly until one of the girls came up with the idea of selling kisses.
Within minutes a furious polarised debate was raging. One side, captained by Naomi, supported the idea. Yes, selling kisses may say little for the girls’ credentials, but the money would speak louder than actions ever could.
Then there were the others: steadfast in their belief that you could never put a price on your dignity. It was an argument championed by Sophie and her acolytes, and, crucially, joined later by Sir Alan himself.
 But it all made fascinating viewing – once again we witnessed reality television stumbling carelessly into a timeless debate. Just like Celebrity Big Brother raised questions about identity, The Apprentice foolishly fanned the fans of the money/dignity dilemma.
Brilliant stuff. And wonderfully timed too, alongside the Fay Turney debacle. From the news to The Apprentice, 21st century Britain found itself wrestling with the big question – does everything have a price?
Team two, captained by Tre, managed to avoid such moral quandaries, opting instead for a simple gardening service.
Not a bad decision, but it’s not hard to think of better. How about a swear jar? If Trey had had to cough up a pound every time he cursed one of his colleagues then they’d have quadrupled tier cash easily.
 But that’s Tre for you – he likes to keep things simple.
“It’s hardly rocket science, is it now?”, he sneered and spat.
Correct, my foul-mouthed friend, it wasn’t – for the main part it was philosophy, but who knows what’ll crop up next week. The way this year’s The Apprentice is going, nothing is out of bounds. |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 07:19 |
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| Wednesday, April 11 |
| Life on Mars |
Life on Mars – the finale
(BBC1. Tuesday. 9PM)
 It would be foolish to argue otherwise – Life On Mars has been absolutely fantastic. Intelligent television without a hint of elitism; a thought-provoking concept which never resorted to preaching; and a drama fuelled by genuine mystery rather than blithering idiocy (Lost – take note).
So perhaps it can be forgiven for last night's vaguely complacent and horribly anticlimactic conclusion. I don’t contend for a moment that television dramas should be forbidden from leaving questions open, but when you’re left still taunted by the same question posed in the show’s tagline than there's got to be something wrong.
 "Am I mad, am I in a coma, or have I traveled back in time?" - it was a question pondered by Sam Tyler at the beginning of every episode, and one which resonated in the minds of every Life on Mars viewer.
And it's a question which will outlive the series. Life On Mars has departed, but we’ll still be left asking it – 'Was he mad, was he in a coma, or did he travel back in time?'.
I'm probably being too tough on Life On Mars. But when your mind has been active all week, conjuring up different endings and juggling various theories, it doesn't just power-down as soon as the end credits roll. And naturally, that energy is soon applied to picking holes in the plot.
 For no matter how hard I try, I'm just not wholly convinced by Sam’s relationship with WDC Cartwright. Yes, I know, things were very different in the seventies - sexual etiquette was a much plainer creative. Desires, I’m told, were expressed in much subtler ways back then. So maybe it’s just my noughties-centricity, but I never really detected that much chemistry between them.
Oh, of course, there was the occasional suggestive bristle or longing stare between them, and Annie always showed faith in Sam's unorthodox methods, but until the closing scenes, there was no evidence that she'd made a real romantic impact on him. And it’s hardly a case of Sam being emotionally reticent - he made no attempt to conceal his feelings for 2006 girlfriend Maya.
 But to mull over such questions would ignore the point of Life On Mars. It was a programme which taught us all a lesson - that sometimes it's about getting results, and not asking how. It reminded us that when you get tied down debating niches and niceties, you can take your eyes off the bigger picture.
So, yes, maybe Life on Mars did break a few rules. And maybe there were ends left untied and boxes left unticked, but, my goodness, wasn't it a sublime drama?
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| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 06:44 |
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| Sex In Court |
Sex in Court(E4. Thursday. 10PM)
 “ If no-one’s interested in your life, then you obviously don’t have one”. Well, according to Paris Hilton, anyway. And it’s a philosophy seemingly shared by the participants E4’s Sex In Court – a rabble of shameless oddities who agree to have their sex lives scrutinised and debated in front of a mass television audience. But what Paris and the Court participants don’t realise is that there’s a glaring difference between your life and your sex life. And that interest in the latter proves very little about the former.  So what has happened so far on Sex In Court? Well, you may be surprised to read that there has yet to be any real sex in court. Although, E4 have come pretty close – the jury (and the leering audience) have been treated to a rather steamy home video. If television has ever come closer to showing unsimulated sex in a court, then I’ve been rather fortunate in its avoidance. But the video wasn’t shown just to titillate the audience. Oh no. It was a crucial piece of evidence. You see, Joanne had brought her boyfriend Ashley before the court, complaining that he’d secretly filmed one of their sex sessions, and had shown the footage to his mates. So both parties were thoroughly cross examined (Well, not quite – Joanne claimed to be ‘devastated and humiliated’ that Ashley’s friends had been shown the footage, yet she had no qualms about letting the E4 audience see it), the jury (twelve ordinary people, we’re told. I have my doubts) returned a verdict, and the judge passed an appropriate sentence.  Taste issues aside, Sex In Court is a nasty little specimen. For a start, it’s victim to rather dire editing. During their deliberation the jury constantly refer to things said but (thanks to terrible editing) not shown. Call me old fashioned, but before I pass judgment on someone, I’d like to see all the evidence. Which is exactly why I'll wait until the end of the series before I pass verdict on Sex In Court. After all, it would be a tad unfair to write the programme off as pure and unmitigated tasteless filth... wouldn't it? |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 02:05 |
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| Tuesday, April 10 |
| Doctor Who |
Doctor Who (Series 29) BBC1. Saturday. 7.00 PM. Two years ago Doctor Who was resurrected – thrown a life rope from the BBC just as it tittered on the edge of the abyss. Remember it? Oh, how you could you forget – that cacophonous hype. You could hardly hear the familiar whir of the theme music above the rapid chatter of television columnists and the excited burr of sci-fi fans each alight with infantile joy. And then last Saturday Doctor Who returned once more. It should have been a far less dramatic occasion (for as long as it may seem, it’s only 39 weeks since the last series finished), but there it was again – that familiar din. Just as loud as before – but with a slightly different tone. This time driven by curiosity rather than fervent excitement.  For strange it may sound, although Doctor Who has resumed its position at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the Doctor himself has hardly enjoyed a mention. The hype has been driven by two names – Rose and Martha. This time the question was not ‘Will Doctor Who compare to previous series?’, but ‘Will Martha Jones compare to the previous assistant?’. Given the hysteric affection for Rose, you can almost separate Doctor Who into three eras: pre-Rose (Series 1-26), Rose (27-28) and, now, post Rose (29). We’re not entirely to blame though – the dumpy siren had the Doctor spellbound too. She certainly cemented a place in his, well, two hearts. ‘If only Rose were here; she’d know what to do!’ he lamented in Smith & Jones.  But it would be a mistake to get too hung up on her absence – a big mistake. Because Doctor Who is back, and the latest episode, The Shakespeare Code, was tremendous – loaded with intelligent quips, literary Easter eggs and some convincing and imaginative characters (the Bard himself would’ve been impressed at how he was presented). And, perhaps more importantly, Martha was a fantastic. Yes, she’s starkly different to her predecessor; and she certainly won’t find herself on the same fame-track to the nation’s heart – she lacks the same everyday background and that modest diluted beauty. But it’s not just skin deep; her personality is very different to that of her predecessor – much more intelligent and recklessly inquisitive. It won’t be case of a Rose by any other name, but there’ll certainly be space for her in the nation’s affections.  And that’s a good thing – it’s nice to have someone who isn’t constantly tailing the Doctor with wide-open eyes and a drooping jaw. ‘The Doctor?’, she retorted when he told her his name, ‘I’m not calling you that! You have to earn that title!’. Oh, if only the poor girl knew - it's her who'll be having to prove herself. |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 08:19 |
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| Monday, April 9 |
| Balls of Steel |
Balls of Steel(Channel 4. Friday. 10PM (Sadly finished) Some people accuse Balls of Steel of promoting anti-social behaviour – which is hardly the sharpest observation. Strip away the fast-foot hurling, public ridiculing and happy slapping from Balls of Steel and there really isn’t much left. To say that Balls of Steel promotes anti-social behaviour is like saying The God Channel promotes Christianity. But it’s not just anti-social behaviour which is portrayed as hilarious and wholesome fun. There’s homophobia too (A regular sketch involves propositioning the public with the riotously funny catchphrase ‘Fancy a bum?’) and the mocking of the physically disabled (Another involves a female contestant pretending to have an outrageous limp to test the reaction of the menfolk).  The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston calls this ‘the televisual equivalent of a kebab’ – again, not the most acute analysis. You can work that much out from the programme’s time slot: 10PM on Friday, on Channel 4 – the home of lowest-common-denominator post-pub idiocy. But let’s extend Wollaston’s metaphor a bit. Sometimes you’re KFC drunk – it’s 11PM and you’re drunk enough to show a reckless disregard for the titans of capitalism, and buy a KFC. Other times you’re kebab drunk – it’s 2AM and you’re drunk enough to show a reckless disregard for the fundamentals of food hygiene, so you go for a kebab. Imagine Charlotte Church is Channel 4’s KFC (Not hard to imagine – she’s greasy, heavily manufactured and devoid of any goodness whatsoever). Then Balls of Steel is Channel 4’s kebab – it’s what they screen when they can’t even get Charlotte Church or Alan Carr. The phrase ‘bottom of the barrel’ was invented for moments like this.  So what delightful jokes does Balls of Steel offer? Well there’s Neg – a man whose obnoxious behaviour proves he’s perfectly suited to his caveman sounding moniker. His idea of a good time (And Balls of Steel’s idea of a ruddy good laugh) consists of leaping on the back of a member of the public, and riding them how a cowboy would a horse. Then there’s Thalia Zucchi – former member (alongside such fountains of talents as Darren from Hollyoaks) of little remembered nineties’ pop band allSTARS*, a band whose delightful television show STARStreet ironed out the path for Miami 7 and the Spiceworld movie. Her slot is dedicated to testing the tempers on unsuspecting females. And then there are Mike ‘Pancho’ Locke and Dainton Pritchard performing a regurgitated version of their Dirty Sanchez routine. They’re still hammering nails between their toes and rubbing raw onions in their eyes like YouTube was never invented.  At times it's so tactless and offensive that it makes the Big Brother fiasco look like enlightened raitonal debate. At other times it's so unasamedly mindless that it makes you think of the Friday Night Project with a slang pang of nostalgia. And yes, it promotes anti-social behaviour too. Like Friday night television, Britain's streets will never be the same again. |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 08:25 |
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| Saturday, April 7 |
| The Real Hustle |
The Real Hustle (BBC3, Thursday, 10.30PM) BBC Three thrives on being edgy. Just look at its programme names. They’re deliberately engineered to shock the flippant Freeview channel hopper – to lure you into taking a second look. There are the ballsy ones – sometimes they’re so assertive that they sound more like a fag-breathed cider-spitting invitation to a pub brawl than a reputable documentary ( Fuck Off, I’m Ginger. April 3rd. 10 PM). Other programmes choose to style their names like a demented homage to those gasp-inducing taboo-mocking talk-show taglines ( Help! My Dog Is As Fat Me. April 9th. 8.30PM) – it’s as if The Jeremy Kyle Show were a macabre creation of Will Self.  And it’s not just window dressing – some of the content is genuinely shocking. Take The Real Hustle – BBC Three’s smarmy and tasteless crimewave of a programme which has just returned for a third series. It’s a sadistic piece of work which follows three dastardly hustlers as they take to the streets and con the British public, before mocking them for their own stupidity. It’s the sort of thing that only the BBC, unblemished by phone-in swindles or premium rate guessing games, could get away with. They’ve got the full spectrum of crooks onboard – all that’s missing is the archetypal Nigerian fraudster. There’s Alex; ‘the confidence trickster’ – think a cross between notorious conman Charles Ponzi and a Top Shop Mannequin.  Then there’s Paul; ‘the scam artist’ – he’s like a soulless phone-shop salesman who’s crossed over to the darkside. And finally, Jess; ‘the sexy swindler’ – a British glamour model whose CV is rich with names like Playboy and Nuts. She’s there to lure in the 18-30 demographic, while the other two induce the paranoia which will root them to their seats. Despite the programme’s success (it’s just been snapped up by a top American network – a glowing certificate of success if ever there were one), it’s brimming with flaws. And the show has faced a blogosphere backlash with sharp-eyed spoilsports arguing that the show’s scams are faked. And they may be right. How else can you explain the use of multiple camera angles and startlingly clear footage? Other scams are suspicious for different reasons. Take the ‘proposition bet’ segment, in which Jessica heads to a trendy bar, sips at a chemical corporate lager before proceeding to con free drinks out of the punters by inducing them into proposition bets.  It sounds impressive, but that’s before you see the hair-gelled leering primates that Jess approaches. They’re the sort of hormone-saturated specimens who spend three pounds on a Kelly Brook wallpaper for their mobile phone. She could probably just ask them for the drinks and they’d happily oblige. So what has kept the show afloat for three series? My guess is it’s that same perverted fascination with crime which propels criminals' confessions into the top slots of the book charts. Or it could just be Britain’s growing paranoia. That horrible feeling that everyone’s out to get you – or at the very least steal your identity and credit card details. The sort of state of fear which keeps people like John Reid in power. Either way, it doesn’t look good. |
| posted by Robert Henry Jackman @ 09:03 |
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I'm tired of trying to get my foot in the door. It's time to follow the example of DCI Gene Hurt. It's time to kick the door down.
See my complete profile |
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Name: Robert Henry Jackman
Home: Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
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