Let's Be Honest

Last night's Sherlock was a bit rubbish really wasn't it? Before you start to fling things in my direction and make your troll comments at the bottom of the page, ask yourself did you enjoy it? Really? Did you really enjoy it? Okay so Benedict Cumberbatch makes a cool Sherlock and some bits of the show are great fun. I love the way that he can deduct that a character has just come back from playing squash with a left handed pigmy with a club foot and eczema - those bits of the drama are great. But last night's story was really tedious. A hallucinatory aerosol created fog, a top secret army base that Holmes enters with a fake pass while Watson doesn't even have to wind his car window down! I'm sorry but I was bored rigid. Last week's episode was entertaining and I hope that next week's is too but I suppose I'm swimming against the tide here as Sherlock is virtually untouchable.

A bit like The Killing. Or should I say The Killing 2. The original series was fabulous and deserves every plaudit that it got. Dark, tense, gloomy, suspenseful it was drama with a capital D. But series 2 had very little of what made series 1 so good apart from the magnificent Sofie Grabol who held things together sufficiently for us to stick with the whole series despite a plot with more holes in it than a pair of Frank Gallagher's socks. Last night we watched the new must see Danish series Borgen. To be honest I enjoyed it very much and I'll be back next week but sometimes I wonder how many programmes are as fabulous as everybody says and how many people say they like stuff for fear of going against the flow.

This week we're off to FACT to see The Artist. Despite dozens of five star reviews and award nominations, our local Vue does not see it as commercially viable enough to show in their Southport multiplex. I asked the manager and he said it's highly unlikely to be shown here which gives us a great excuse to visit FACT which is our favourite cinema. They're also showing Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore which is a classic from the past that we've never got around to seeing so we'll make a day of it and take in both films and a bite to eat.


I suppose I shouldn't moan too much about Sherlock. This is what they're showing on Brazilian telly.





Its been a while since I posted a YouTube video on here but, like the proverbial bus, here's another one right behind. I wonder if this will be Marion with Rose in fifteen years. 

An Open Letter To The Today Programme

Dear Today

This morning you featured an interview with seventy nine year old Miss Debbie Reynolds. What a breath of fresh air it was. Listening to someone with such joie de vivre was uplifting - inspiring even.

I've been a loyal listener for years but I can't be alone in feeling ground down every day by your constant drip drip drip of doom, gloom and misery that must send many of the country's movers and shakers off to work with a black cloud over their heads. Hardly the stuff to stimulate creativity.

OK you've got a duty to tell things as they are but there must surely be room in your schedule for a Miss Reynolds type character to appear on a more frequent basis. I know that you had a similar interview with the equally upbeat Doris Day some time ago and I felt very much the same then.

Does it have to take septuagenarian and octogenarian American film stars to provide the only infrequent oasis of positives in your Sahara of negatives? Or could you find another antidote to Robert Peston et al on a more regular basis?

I don't want you to patronise your audience and turn Today into Jackanory but I can't have been alone in feeling good listening to Debbie today and that has to be a good thing.

More like it please.

Yours etc


JB

Why 6,000 Eastenders Viewers Should Be Ignored

Now I have to start by saying that I am not an Eastenders viewer. It must be pretty good to have been going for so long and winning critical acclaim from plenty of excellent TV writers but I simply haven't had the time to get into any of the soaps. Hopefully that doesn't stop me from commenting on the latest news that the BBC is to change the planned story line as a result of 6,000 complaints from viewers.


Clearly the producers struck a raw nerve to upset so many people by running a drama involving a bereaved mother of a sudden infant death syndrome child swapping her dead baby for a neighbour's newborn son. But isn't it the point of a good drama that it should create interest and stimulate discussion. Surely, in developing this fascinating plot, the BBC has continued in its tradition of making Eastenders television that millions want to watch. Presumably the bereaved character has mental health issues which could be explored as the story unravels. Instead, in bowing to public pressure and curtailing the plot, the scriptwriters are left with more anodyne alternatives.


I know that with X Factor, Strictly and I'm A Celebrity we viewers are all interactive now and can influence the outcome of the shows we watch but if we are going to start influencing drama I'm not sure that we'll get better TV. Can you imagine how things might pan out? The BBC runs a religious drama at Easter and in response to public outcry Pontius Pilate changes his decision and crucifies Barabbas instead of Jesus, Oliver asks for more and gets it and the Titanic misses the iceberg.


Let's leave the stories to the BBC (and anyone else making TV drama for that matter). If the public don't like it they can always switch off but, with up to 17 million viewers at times, those 6,000 complainants are a drop in the ocean and should be taken as such.

It was good to see a couple of adverts in this week's viral video chart sent to me by those wonderful unruly media people. We haven't had too many recently so here goes with two great but very different offerings from Intel and Lego.