HUGHESY'S EYE ON THE TELLY! A weekly look of the TV world from our Review Editor Ross Hughes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yippee the TV Christmas guides are out, which means an hour studying them and grabbing my big red marker to highlight which shows I need to watch.  This should only take me about five minutes though because even by glancing at the magazine makes me realise that there is feck all on this year.  The usual soap misery where in EastEnders Fat Pat dies when she finally puts on a large ear ring which makes her keel over with heart failure, where in Corrie there are actually doing something original, a pregnant girl plays a certain person in a play and just happens to go into labour, wow…I wonder who thought that up, and then in Emmerdale we have yet more new born baby shit and of course the ongoing saga of “Who Knocked Cain out and left him for dead?”, which is yet another brand new never before seen storyline that I have never been this excited since the “Who Shot JR!”. plot and the “Who Shot Phil!” and “Who killed Archie Mitchell! and who could forget the “Who kidnapped Bouncer the Dog and cooked him for Christmas Dinner!” saga in Neighbours.

 

Of course its not just about the soaps, Christmas Telly should be serving up big films to blow us away and what have we got?……..Well apart from all the Disney films that your kids probably have anyway, we are being treated by the very festival films of The Hot Chick and The Towering Inferno.

 

Downtown Abbey is the big draw for ITV and yet they (or the BBC) put it on the same time as Eastenders which of course spoils it for feckin everyone.  Doctor Who looks rather naff for me to get excited about but at least this year we are saved from Katherine Jenkins singing to a whale!

 

Which makes me pine for at least some comedy to cheer me up but with The Royale Family sadly missing from the schedules (damn you two for not finishing the script in time) we have got a brand new, never seen before comedy called Absolutely Fabulous,  which reminds me of a 90’s fav which run out of ideas after about Season 2. 

 

So thank feck then for Boxing Day and at 10pm we have the rather brilliant and best comedy hit of the year Mr’s Brown Boys which if you have not seen it yet is the most funniest shows for years and as shades of Father Ted to it!  Take a brief look at this great gag from season 1….

 

 
Where its Semi Final night and once again we see logic go straight out of the window.  Marcus sings and Louis Walsh states “I want everyone to vote for you, I want to see you in the final”…..where Little Minx sings and Louis Walsh states “I want everyone to vote for you, I want to see you in the final”, where Misha B sings and Louis Walsh states “”I want everyone to vote for you, I want to see you in the final” and finally when Ameila Lilly sings and Louis Walsh states “”I want everyone to vote for you, I want to see you in the final”,  which means someone really needs to explain to Louis how this Semi-Final thing works….

 
This week I am left feeling really underwhelmed and have finally realised that the reason why I have a few drinks on a Saturday is to numb the pain from watching this dire season where it makes you pine for the return of Steve Brookstien.  Marcus finally shows the world that he is not as good as Gary Barlow thinks he is with his version of My Girl making me want to sue The Temptations for giving the world this forever played song.   The “is she a bully or not?” fiasco rumbles on around Misha who can belt a note but stands there with a face you just want to slap and then we get to Little Minx who this week had some good advice from Gary Barlow.  “Your group needs a lead singer!” he proudly tells them which makes me want to shout back “Then why did Mark and Robbie sing loads of songs for Take That then!
 
As for the girl with the wandering hand, yes guys I am talking about our favourite Ameila and once again we have to listen to Kelly Rowlands heap praise on her girl and compare her to the likes of Madonna, which would be ok of course and quite right but Kelly, “If you think that great of her, why did you dump her in the first week?. 

 

Onto Sunday night and we had the gripping result show where we saw a boy who looked under the age of 10 and goes by the name of Bieber, dance and sing to the joys of under 13 year old girls while the rest of us looked on in uncomfortable awe.  I mean this guy has the new “Britney” written all over him and by that I mean a massive breakdown by the time he is 30.  Tulisa had her tattoos covered by a huge bangle which proved that you should believe all you read in the papers and we then had to witness Kelly on stage doing a remix of all her greatest hits.  This poor Beyonce clone danced for a while and did not sing much which made me think that perhaps she should have gone on Strictly Come Dancing!

 

After her performance which made me get up to my feet to make a cup of tea we had to listen to Louis Walsh trying again that American Slang “You got it down girl!” which made me write a letter to Points Of View in hope that he will forever get banned from ever uttering those words again.  Of course with The X Factor being on ITV I realised that writing a letter to the BBC to complain about an ITV programme was rather pointless but I live in hope that they pass it on.   Once more  we had countless advert breaks before we get to the most important bit of the show and that is the results, a part of the show that only appears 6 minutes in an hour programme.

 

The 4 outstanding talent of singers who have a future selling Album covers at Christmas stood there nervously in hope that the Louis predication that he hopes all four go through comes true which would mean the actual Semi Final show was pointless!.  Dermot stood there with their fate in his hands before he announces to no deep surprise that Misha B was the one to go and with the studio quiet due to the fact we all knew it was coming, Misha then showed the world exactly what we are not going to miss with a final song that had the judges up on their feet and me including, but I was turning over to see what was on the other side!

 

Oh well, only the final left!……………….

 

 

 

Really enjoying this new comedy from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant despite it taking a knocking from critics everywhere.  Warwick Davis is a revelation here, showing great comedy talent which have been hidden in the past probably under all that Ewok fur.  Calls for it to be banned and that it takes the piss
out of dwarfs is way off the mark.  There are some genuine laugh out loud moments and what other BBC show can pull off having guest stars like Johnny Depp in their line up!

 

Warwick deserves a lot of credit to put himself in a position where he is constantly being pissed on by all involved and the negativity seems to come from a core of people who just do not get the joke!  Like Gervais quite rightly said we the audience are laughing at Warwick because of the position he puts himself in not because he is a dwarf.  To sum up why viewers should not take this seriously is the moment when Depp confronts Gervais over his slurs about him on the Golden Globes awards, its a moment where Depp actually gets his revenge and makes Gervais finally shut is big loud mouth, and yet who wrote that scene, Ricky himself which shows that he too is quite happy for himself to be mocked.

 

Warwick makes me laugh because his ego is so big that he deserves the fall he gets and I actually squirm in embarrassment at the situations he puts himself in.  The only time where I thought the show may have gone a tad too far is when we saw the Dwarf dressed like a Gladiator, being sick over his own penis, but then I was laughing too much to really care!….

 

 

 

America is a big land where there are millions of actors and actresses looking for work but yet judging by the programmes you see each week you swear that there are only a handful.  Not content of bagging Jack Bauer’s sort of girlfriend from Day 5 for the lead wife role in American Horror Story, we now have Syler from Heroes turn up!   Whose next?  Wentworth Miller from Prison Break?  Why can’t we see some new faces on the box, I mean only last week we saw Hiro from Heroes turn up in Hawaii 50 alongside the guy from LOST, you know the one could not speak a word of English for like three season’s.  Its amazing really that I have not noticed this before and its only come to my attention because I am going through my 24 box-set for a special HCF feature and the many faces I have spotted is amazing, I mean can you imagine my surprise when I saw Desmond from (LOST again) turn up for a confrontation with Jack. 

 

As soon as I turned over to watch American Horror Story and saw Quinto I immediately thought “Syler!” and from there I just could not take his character seriously which is already a negative for me for a show that is struggling to escape the shadow of the much better True Blood!….

 

 

Remember that kid in school, you know the one, he always sat up proud in his full uniform and he could answer every question without fuss.  His IQ seemed to be 100 times higher than your own and while you often shared the odd glance, there was nothing there to connect you both and you knew while you probably end up in some dead end Retail job, that kid will some day become a Doctor or something. 

 

This memory brings me to Young Apprentice now…..

 

 

Where lets get this straight, I love The Apprentice, not too fussed on this young version.  It seems quite odd to see kids dressed in their smart suits and running around trying to be all business like.  The only suit I got to wear when I was young was my birthday suit and that was when I was born.  Watching these lot makes me feel quite sad, like I could have been one of them, cracking deals and signing contracts but then when I was their age I was more concerned about losing my virginity and trying to get White Lightening cider to drink down the park than chasing a muti million pound deal.

 

Until Next Time……………