Mastermind

I remember as a child that Ma Davie was a huge fan of University Challenge and Mastermind. She loved answering the questions and to be fair she generally did pretty well. I used to listen to her and think she was very intelligent and would I ever reach that level of intelligence. Of course I knew I would and even at the tender age of 11 I was aware that Ma Davie had many years more experience than me and had read more books and therefore it was only a matter of time before I became that intelligent. I am watching Mastermind as I type. Has this been dumbed down ? I could never answer any questions and now it all seems fairly straight forward and I could certainly make a guess at a lot of the questions rather than pass. And there has been a woman on who chose "The Sopranos" as her specialist subject !! Really - is this allowable? In the 1980's they picked subjects such as "the life and works of some obscure musician" or "King Henry VIII's life between 1508 and 1511". Now someone is picking their favourite TV programme ? I could go and answer questions about the Bill or Neighbours and presumably win this competition. Unbelievable.

Mickey's Review of Christmas Part 2

Davie's criticism of Doctor Who's Christmas Special allows me to flow seamlessly into part II of my eagerly awaited "Mickey's Review of Christmas" series of posts. For my next thing that I was going to review was the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

And here, I'm starting it now. Look!

Doctor Who

Six weeks ago I was going to do a blog entry where I predicted that the Doctor Who Christmas special would be rubbish. But I was busy with other things (work and that probably, but it might have been laziness), so what would have been an incisive piece of speculative tripe never got to be written. What it would have said was that the fact that they've got Kylie Minogue in it meant that the story would be very dull and they needed a star name to make us forget about how bad it was.

And it turns out that if I had written this, I would have been right. Not even the presence of the great B Cribbins (when oh when will he be knighted?) could rescue it.

And now Davie has watched it, thinking that the Christmas Special will be one of the better episodes, finds a lot of rubbish about a mad company director, and it puts him off sci-fi for another ten years. My success in recommending Heroes to him had almost persuaded him to watch Battlestar Galactica, but this has cancelled out all my good work.

There was one good thing about it. One of the few people to survive was the arrogant dislikable fellow and at the end of it he was still arrogant and dislikable. He hadn't "grown" or "learnt something". I liked that. It reminded me of real life.

New Year Celebrations with Take That

Not my choice of programme to watch over the new year, although thank all that is good that we didn't watch Jool's Holland Hootenanny which appears to have been recorded and not done live over New Year. (Seriously, anyone who thought it was live is clearly a little dim, and anyone who then wrote in to complain that it wasn't live can't handle the 21st century and needs to be taken away to somewhere safe.)

Back to Take That - if there's anyone I didn't want to be the first to "officially" wish me happy new year it was Kate Thornton. I'd have had a happier new year if she'd kept her official new year wishes to herself, but there you go - 2008 off to the worst possible start, thanks Kate.

So there you have it. I watched four programmes over Christmas and New Year and they were all dreadful old rubbish. If only I'd taken time to watch To The Manor Born.

Happy 2008 readers. Well wasn't Christmas TV rubbish ? I try not to watch too much over the festive period but on Christmas night I settled down with Mrs Davie and watched Doctor Who and To the manor born. Now regular readers will appreciate I am no fan of the sci-fi. But Kylie was in Doctor Who so I thought I would give it a go. Lord it was tedious. Yes Kylie was in it and yes she is an attractive girl but is that really the best they can do - a complete rip off of the Poseidon Adventure ? I used to really quite like To the Manor Born but when it was at its peak in the mid 80's did it really have no discernible plot line in an episode? There was about two minutes of nostalgia and 58 minutes of boredom/disbelief.

Still it is 2008 and time to look forward. Already I am enjoying Brotherhood on FX and Damages on BBC1. I had heard nothing about Damages but it might be the best thing on the box right now. Watch it - go on - make it your new years resolution.

Mickey's Review of Christmas Part 1

Here's my special New Year treat for you all:

A summary of some of the things that I saw and whether I thought they were good or not.

1. Christmas at the Riviera

I've just checked on imdb.com and it appears to have been written and produced by the same people who did The Worst Week Of My Life, which I've never seen, but got good reviews.

It had an allstar cast, with the likes of Alexander Armstrong (out of Armstrong and Miller), Sam Kelly (off of Allo Allo), the bloke who was the neighbour in Saxondale (out of Saxondale), Ferris (off of Darling Buds of May), Reece Shearsmith (out of the League of Gentlemen) etc.

With credentials like that, surely this should be a surefire laugh a minute hit. But wait, it's Christmas. So lets go for tragic characters going through genuinely traumatic and upsetting situations. Poor old Sam Kelly getting over euthanising (is that a word?) his wife from terminal cancer, Ferris going through chemotherapy for her own cancer. Great uplifting and life affirming comedy for Christmas Eve.

It reminded me of the classic Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special when Rodney collapsed in Del's arms as he told him that his beloved Cassandra had had a miscarriage.

2. My Family

I don't watch My Family generally although I understand that Mrs Davie is a big fan.

While I had no fault with the comic performances on show (Lindsay and Wanamaker are at the top of their game), nor with the plot of the programme (genuine farce with very little mawkish sentiment, and no life shattering tragedies to deal with) I watched with a strange sense of bemusement.

My sister-in-law and her family were laughing away, making appreciative comments and looking extremely satisfied with the entertainment on offer. Meanwhile, my brother and I simply sat, occasionally exchanging bewildered glances as to why we weren't enjoying what clearly should have been riproaring British comedy at its best.

I could see that there were jokes and comic situations. I could see where I was supposed to laugh at, and I saw that it was quite well done. But it left me numb. That's right. Lindsay and Wanamaker left me cold and numb.

In summary then: Christmas at the Riviera: not good, less human tragedy in future please; My Family: not good, make it a different kind of funny so that my brother and I will laugh in future please.

I could go on, but I'm trying to cut down on my blog length. I'll do part two in a few days. And as it's 2008 I'll not do my "what I watched on television" bit either. Mind you, I should end with some sort of unfunny quip or in-joke (possibly referencing something that I've written earlier in the post) that finishes the thing off.

Erm, I used a semi-colon in an earlier paragraph. I don't know, but it was probably not appropriate. I've never been able to use them properly. I got a C in English Language O-Level you see.

This writers strike

Michael. I am very pleased to hear you have bought the first Spooks series. I may need to borrow that from you. After all I hear these writers who are striking in the US are sticking to their guns. I am very worried about how little good TV will appear in January, which is of course the second most depressing month in the year after April. Already there will be no 24 until it is finished and only half of Lost. Probably will be no Desperate Housewives either. BBC3 seems to have decided that screening any other series of The Apprentice USA is simply too much effort. The Schofield brothers are probably going to be stuck in animated suspension in Panama until 2011. This strike is going to be a real pain as there are very few good British programmes that come out in the early part of the year. So with that in mind I am trying to get into the Unit on Virgin. President Palmer from 24 is in it and appears to believe he is playing the same character. It is quite good but I thought it would be more dramatic and have other twists. At the moment i appears to be an updated version of the A-Team except they have wives in the Unit. Still I will probably be glad of it in January.

Yes, Spooks

Davie (or Davy) is totally correct with his opinion of last night's Spooks.

I can honestly say that this series of Spooks has been the best British made drama series I have ever seen. Yes. I liked it better than Doctor Who. That's how good it was.

(I'll explain myself here. The last series of Doctor Who was magnificent in places, containing some brilliant episodes, but it also had some really crap ones - notably the ones with the Daleks in New York. This series of Spooks was consistently brilliant. There were no bad episodes. Every one was an absolute classic.)

I haven't watched earlier series, so I bought the first series on DVD tonight. I found it in Tesco for £15. I've heard it's not as good as this series, but I feel it's the least I can do considering how much enjoyment this series gave me.

The other thing I watched last night was the special feature length Battlestar Galactica episode, Razor.

I was a bit dubious when I heard about this - an all new episode, but set a few years ago - what's the point? I know none of the major cast members will die. I know that whatever happens, it won't affect anything.

And after I'd watched Spooks I was even more dubious. Nothing would reach the dramatic heights of the final scenes. I was going to be disappointed.

How wrong I was. I absolutely love Battlestar Galactica, and this episode was one of the best. Just because it's set in space it's easy to dismiss it as sci-fi rubbish, but it's so much more than that. It bears as much resemblance to Star Trek and the like as The Shield does to Jake and the Fatman.

And it had some really good scenes with old style cylons (you know like off of the old series with Face off of the A Team).

If this US writers' strike means that the final series doesn't get finished I shall never watch television again.

What I watched on television last night

• Spooks - it was okay. Kept me entertained, I suppose.
• Battlestar Galactica Razor. The usual scifi rubbish I normally talk about.

What I've just done there is the same joke I did here. Well done me.

Spooks

Spooks - absolutely brilliant. I had some doubts that the move away from the self contained episode would work but I need not have feared. The series finished tonight and it was a great ending. Poor old Adam has no luck. I hope they are going to do another series like this.

Did not watch Dragons Den last night - never fear readers, I do have it on Sky Plus but last night I was listening to Sir Ranulph Fiennes talking. He was telling us about his trips to the Antarctic. A very good speaker but a little bit mental - why would you put yourself through that kind of pain.

Apologies for the shorter blog tonight - need to take our new four legged friend out for a walk now.