Best Before End Part: The Future of Television

Cunts.

We're already fucked. This is a photograph of the 'cast' from ITV 2's high end 'soap' The Only Way Is Essex. I had the misfortune to catch this while endlessly channel hopping, because when you have Virgin Media's 'Medium' package or Freeview, that's essentially what counts for an evenings viewing. For a few minutes I wondered if this was a parody. This idea alone is bad enough. Then I made the link, the truth dawned on me. 'Hang on, this is ITV 2! Of course it isn't a parody.' Yes, readers, these living and breathing Ken and Barbie's are real! Somehow they have money and mobility to be as tacky and as vile as they like and because they are so mind-crushingly stupid, they can't see it, let alone care about it. With phrases and constant banalities like 'Ohmigod.', 'No!', 'Shut up!', they're like a bad Catherine Tate sketch. And they are vile. Take Mark Wright. I don't deny he's good looking and has lots of cash. This doesn't worry me. If he approves of the air-headed orange faced bimbos who hang around him like the smell of unshowered spunk, that's his look out. But he's a cunt. Or it could be the editing to make him out to be a cunt. If he had a brain he'd have some form of empathy. But he wears his ignorance and cunty attitude towards the female members of the cast with that kind of pointless pride that might have been in fashion in Hornblower's time.

That's one of the problems though. These people are dangerous because of the bubble of ignorance and fantasy they live inside. Kind of like typical viewers of ITV 2. You could  suggest that it's all harmless fun, like most 'soaps' or 'reality' shows, or punching a tramp in the face for so long that it makes your fist sore. But if only they were harmless. More than anything NOTHING happens. The characters and the events are so boring. It's not aspirational or inspirational. It's BORING! More than that, hateful. This is what those who complain about this show ruining the image of Essex should be getting riled about. But as ever, this will get pushed onto us at the expense of genuine new talent, such is ITV's quest to be the Heat magazine version of broadcast media. In the media universe the stupid reign supreme. Long live the stupid.



MORGANA SHOW

She can do Fearne, you see?

This came in from a meeting at Channel 4. Idea for a comedy show. Take a wacky, wacky personality kind of like French and Saunders or Catherine Tate and Katy Brand, you know really amusing women who are so talented they don't resort to lazy, stereotyped characters, cliches and  basic catchphrase comedy, and let's create a new show that attacks and satirises really, really hard targets, so that everyone will take a long hard long at the world and be ashamed of themselves. Especially Fearne Cotton. Fuck it, just commission something as awful as those examples with all the worst, overdone aspects. Channel 4 viewers are finally daft enough to put up with the crap we throw at them.

So Morgana. She can do Fearne Cotton you know. According to some on twitter, an impersonation of Fearne just being over enthuisastic is the stuff of legends. It's more iconic and funny than DEL BOY FALLING THROUGH A BAR.  Because you see, Fearne Cotton is a bit enthusastic. Get it? So it's funny. And the fact that it's like this every episode, with Fearne being overly enthusiastic is bound to be funny because it'll knock Fearne Cotton down a peg or to, because Fearne Cotton is an over enthusiastic bitch.And she's a mate and can't stop going on about it and playing the clips on her show, so amused as she is by someone impersonating her.  As we've learnt from Little Britain it's highly, highly amusing to repeat the same basic gag every week, because it makes it funnier and it'll be funnier still when channels devoted to old television programmes repeat the repeated basic gags over and over and over again till the end of time.

But Morgana is actually very clever at creating complex characters, She can do a poor Boris Johnson. Not purposely odd like Reeves and Mortimer portray people but just poor. She can do jokes about people with mental illness. Mental illness is funny without any context isn't it? Don't listen to me Morgana, just let all your mates in Yes Yes Land endow you with faint praise. Fucking wank.

Frankie, minus hair and glasses.

FRANKIE BOYLE

'He looks like a sex criminal.' That's what should be quoted on the back of his book because for all it's logic that's the kind of observation he'd find blisteringly humourous. In a way this lack of logic and randomness to Frankie Boyle's stand up and his terrible show Tramadol Nights is characteristic. You would have thought that if there was something beyond making fun of disabled people, gay people, black people and all the obvious targets for offense he might be onto something. It doesn't challenge anything though. Not even the bounds of taste or taboos. Or audience response to them. Maybe it wouldn't have to if it was funny, which is essentially the only remit of comedy, but there also lies the problem. 'Mock The Week' isn't funny. You can see the desperation and forced laughter on the hosts face. You can hear it in the audience. Not a great breeding ground for comedy. Russell Howard's boss eye makes him vaguley amusing (see what I did there Frankie) and that, bloody useless, whatsherface, Ganeesh Yashmer(?) are hardly inspiring. Boyle's interludes when he wasn't crowd pleasing could be amusing. However he seems to have found his level and will milk it for all its worth, inspiring dozens of pissed up plebs who watch his show to laugh at the unfortunate just because its funny. It's the kind of comedy that comes from a a ginger haired kid with specs who was bullied at school. Very sad. To think that Channel Four had Chris Morris for a while. Tsk.