More Television P/Reviews

Not With A Bang, But A Whimper: Three New TV Shows That Surely Herald The End Of Days

Has anyone read the Book of Revelation?  It’s pretty freaky, florid and flamboyant.  Very imaginative.  But most biblical scholars will tell you it’s not meant to be taken literally….

Yes, that’s right, it’s another clever-clever everything-is-shit article from an elitist cultural critic who presumably only likes the most obscure things you’ve never heard of.  (Or, at least, pretends to.)

So, if you actually like television (and surely someone must), maybe switch one on and don’t trouble yourself with this bollocks.  Yes, it’s TV P/Re/views. 

Obviously, I haven’t actually watched any of these things.  Because I’m better than you.

At time of writing, the first episodes of A & B are about to air for the first time (no doubt they will be repeated several times across 78 channels).  Also, it seems like it would involve an unbearable amount of suffering, which I don’t fancy at all. 

This p/re/view does, however, assume some prior knowledge of the subjects, so basically appeals only to those who know about these things but hate them.  How’s that for elitist?

Exhibit A

I’m quite imaginative myself, but I cannot imagine anything worse than being on a date, in public, with someone I don’t know at all.  Apparently unsatisfied with the usual level of pitiful awkwardness of this most contrived of social occasions, Channel 4, arbiters of all the very worst of human culture, have stepped in to make the whole thing even worse.  With a concept that could only be regarded as an unmitigated horror, they are to televise the dates of young people – AND invite the viewing public to comment on the awkwardness.  AND it will be presented by the big smug Welsh fella, this year’s ubiquitous TV “personality”, who is apparently popular, for some reason.

So: dating, in public, apparently not awful enough for Channel 4, must now have running commentary from a sarky git whose every scripted barb is delivered with a cocky grin, as if he thought of it himself, because someone that good-looking can just be an arsehole to everyone and we’ll all just indulge it. 

To my knowledge, I haven’t been on television since 1990, but it seems that these days a person must be willing to have their most cringingly horrible moments preserved on a screen for all time.  But since every human interaction is now mediated through a screen, there is so much of this trash in the landfill of “content” that is displayed on screens.  The hope must be, therefore, that no one will ever look for it, that even if it is found someday, it will be regarded as a mere historical curiosity, like an ASDL server, or a phone which is actually a phone.

Exhibit B

Since the first time I heard anything about Made In Chelsea, I assumed it represented the nadir of the human condition; the idea that anyone would enjoy watching absurdly coifed, wealthy young twats argue with each other over which of them would next shag their brainless idiot counterpart on the other side of the screen seemed so absurd that I couldn’t even find it annoying.

It’s not even novel, being far from the first reality show that isn’t even close to reality and “plays with”, ie, shits all over, the concept of reality as it is understood by humans.

What programme would actually need to advertise: “Some scenes have been created for your entertainment”?  (Aren’t they all?  Apparently not; presumably, some/most scenes of the programme were created as a morality tale, warning the rest of us to never ever go to Chelsea (I’m with Elvis Costello on this one).  It’s as if someone thought Chelsea FC wasn’t a horrid enough ambassador for the borough of Kensington & Chelsea, like there was too much good press for the place, and some balance was required.)

Still, never likely to pause and consider the implications of the cultural sink that is C4, the programme makers have found a way to make the programme even more disagreeable.  What’s got a worse reputation than Chelsea for being absolutely chock-full of vacuous, barely sentient, image-obsessed, inexplicably rich irritants?

Yep: L Fucking A.

So, now, Chelsea is going to LA.  If they all stay there when the camera crews come home, the whole thing might be considered a victory.

Exhibit C

Jeremy Clarkson and James May (and, presumably, the other one) have got a new TV programme that’s not on TV.

The budget for the first series is reportedly £160000000.

So, that’s it then: humanity and I must part company.

Despite efforts on both sides, it is clear that we have grown apart.  Our differences are irreconcilable, and for the sake of children (all children, everywhere), it is clear that we should stop hurting each other by pretending that we can continue our relationship as before.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish humans all the best in what will no doubt be testing times, given climate change, the encroachment of fascism in to mainstream political discourse and Jeremy Fucking Clarkson still being alive and allowed to be in public.

I have tried.  I have really tried, I have worked at this relationship.  And I like to think I am gracious enough to give credit to humanity for its hard work; this relationship is not ending for lack of effort on either side.  In these situations, it is important to acknowledge that no individual is to blame – not even the evil, putrid, money-soaked, anti-human force that has unleashed this latest atrocity on me/us.

I suppose I am like a rat leaving the sinking ship of humankind, but I fear it is already too late for that, that humanity’s self-destructive behaviour will devour us all in a cacophony of ignorance, Victorian social policy, rape jokes on Twitter and insufferable middle-aged men with the minds of twelve year-old boys making TV programmes that won’t even be on TV.

Oh, and if all the above wasn’t enough, someone has given Katie Hopkins her own TV programme.

Goodnight and Good Luck, humans.  You are doomed and it is all your own fault. 

More in hope than expectation, I wish you the very best.