When pathetic sharks attack ....

What we learned from this weekend TV:

Telly programmes do go on a bit

Who will be the next Dr Who? BBC1 Sat 3^rd 5.35 Great White Shark - A Living Legend BBC2 Fri 2^nd & The Lost Pyramid channel 4 sat 7.25.

While I wait for my freeview adapter to turn up I've been watching the 5 terrestrial channels and watching stuff I may have skipped past normally.

Last night bbc2 added to the global shark documentary ocean with another film about the great white shark. I had a quick look and there seems to over 700 species of shark in the world so why does only one ever get shown on TV? Well I know about Jaws but let's be honest the effect of wildlife documentaries telling us great whites aren't voracious killers while showing them chomping seal cubs is greater these days than Spielberg's overhyped b movie. This is especially the case when loads of people watching these shark attack programmes have never seen Jaws.

This documentary was typical of the form in that it took ages to tell us very little; the films main selling point was that the shark expert swam with the sharks in open water which was less dramatic than it could have been as his camera man was also swimming along with him. In fact the whole show was based around five seconds of film showing a great white attacking a seal shot from below the water. Which would have been even better if it wasn't a plastic seal being pulled a boat being eaten! So interesting bit of film 2 -3 mins total length of film 1 hour.

The pyramid film was worse, all channel 4 docs are too long, I dread to think how long they must be in America with their advert rate they must last 3 hours easily. This film was about the remains of a pyramid on a hill near Giza, the whole story could have been told in half an hour tops. But they took an hour and half thus rendering an interesting story tedious. Basically the reason the pyramid disappeared was that everyone from the Romans onwards have been nicking the stone. That being said after taking so long to tell us this they didn't explain why the same fate hasn't befallen the other pyramids to the same extent, oh damn they'll need another decade to tell us that.

As for the new Dr Who, we got another half an hour of the series' worst crime "the making of documentary", nothing to do with new Doctor is worth a damn until Russell T Davis has spent 10 mins in his charming and cheeky way telling us about William Troughton genius, is there really anyone alive who doesn't know the sequence of old doctors? Is it fair to keep having to skip over the crap 80's ones? I don't care how it was made? I don't care which bit of Cardiff the chippy Celts who make the programme tried to palm off as Camden? I just want to watch the programme. May be like the others here the producers should be honest and say look we have to sell this to America so it has to be 45 mins long so they can fill the rest of the hour with pop tart commercials, why don't you go and make some tea and toast for a bit and we'll be back with that dancing programme on the hour.

As for the new Doctor well he's clearly been brought in so they can have more pouty snogging in the rain scenes which are the most over used plot devices since the series was relaunched that and because you can't have old people on the TV anymore.

sunday night update:

The Real Italian Job: James Martin's Mille Miglia: Cheeky yorkshire TV chef tries to take part in a road race in Italy he spends 800k on an old car and then it breaks down on the first day of the 3-4 day race (20 mins in) but of course the the programme ground on for the full hour hurrah!

Who ,What, Where?

What we learnt from last night's telly?

*spoilers*

Dr Who ended with a big mad finale the only complaint I have was an outbreak of nonsense names. You might have heard of the game for naming spy novels take a mythological name and it to abstract noun e.g. "The Chimera paradox", "The medusa quarrel", "The Persephone Countdown" well DW did have a lot of this last night the "Osterharg key" (or summat) the “two-way biological metacrisis” (I had one of these in bar in Limehouse once, a few stiff gins and some cream from Boots and I was fine) the “reality nexus” it got a tad silly.

This aside it was enjoyable if barking and I like the way the modern series deals a lot in time travel the older series didn’t seem to bother much with all this.

One last nice touch was that we didn’t see Davros die as unlike the Cybermen, the Master or even the Daleks, there is only one Davros he’s the same wheel barrow full of mad scheming latex in every encounter.

Warning : Whatever you do don’t watch the choir programme that was on after Dr Who it’s 1,000 % sentimental crud.

Over to Lauren who’s talking to a cow

What we learned from this weekend’s telly.

That pop festivals are better in real life than on the telly

Watching some of the BBC’s Glastonbury shows I was surprised by how limited their coverage was. The seemed to show 1 or 2 songs from certain artist repeatedly, quite large acts didn’t seem to figure at all.

Q: Also if Glastonbury is so vaunted for the breadth of the entertainment on show, how come none of this get on TV other than a few glib “here come the freak clips”? Why not have an evening of comedy or shoot the circus arena for the Saturday BBC1 variety slot etc?

Q: Also why not see more of the festival from the fans point of view?

Q: Also why do all the special acoustic sets in the studio when there’s 20 bands at anyone time playing live outside, they are usually not that great, it seems perverse.

Q: What’s all this cock about this year being the year of hip hop there’s been hip hop acts at Glastonbury before (maybe not head lining) but you’d think nobody in Britain had ever heard any Black music if you’d listen to Jay-Z , Zane Lowe and crew.

Q: Also if it is an arts festival where’s the critical distance?
We get it at the Edinburgh festival and the Cannes film festival, we even get it on the fotty but every single act was “fantastic” “brilliant”. I’ve seen lots of ropey bands at Glastonbury but Edith Bowman seemingly hasn’t? I do think that the presenters are compromised by the cheerleader role that and their chumminess with the organisers.

Westwood should have a kid’s show.
Every time I see the guy I’m gob struck with his total full on schtick, surely he can’t be like that all the time? How does he interact with people who don’t speak fluent nonsense? But I do think 4 years olds would entranced by him “look, look mummy the funny old man’s talking about shoes again look, look....”

Mark Radcliffe is slowly turning into John Peel: not only has he started to look like him , but also dresses like JP and his tv style is the same it’s faintly scary.

Q: How many times can Edith Bowman interview her boyfriend (him from T’Editors) without it being totally pointless and self indulgent?

Other stuff.
Motty’s last stand: I was going to give him 20 minutes for old time’s sake but he managed to start his commentary with a barrage of tedious boring stats, so on went five live.

Dr Who Vs Mangy Man
I Player watchers spoiler alert!

Davros has come back how cool is that? He was always very scary and creepy all that rubbery skin and his weird blind sockets but with an artifical eye thing.

Me and my mate JC made our own Action Man villain called “Mangy Man™” based on Davros; he was a poor fallen soldier whose back was broken (we hit him with an hammer after putting him on a fire and the elastic snapped!). Sadly nailing his legs back on failed to restore his mobility so we dripped molten plastic crisp packets all over him and mashed his head up a bit with Stanley knife and then built him a sort flying armoured cardboard wheel chair with machine guns and rockets engines at the back. He was dead ace I think he had a hook or was that “Mighty Coalhead™” whose space suit saved his body from the flames of his burning HQ but his head shrivelled to lump of coal. The “Mighty Coalhead’s™” his special powers where surviving being run over by JC’s Dad’s car and being chucked in his fetid septic pond.... I blame the asbestos JC’s dad kept in the shed.

Good moon arisin'

What we learned from Last nights TV:

Always count your shadows:
Things are never black and white, television is dumbing down we are told and to a large extent they are right with everything from “Grand designs” to “Britain’s got talent” being bland crud. But then you get a episode of Dr Who like last night which was genuinely creepy and involving and maybe just maybe things aren’t too bad.

Then there was the doc about Johnny Cash, and the bit in compilation of his “Country Gold” shows where the Everly brothers sang a song about their dad complete with guitar breaks from their dad that was so lovely I found I had something in my eye.

Lastly I finally caught “In the shadow of the moon” on channel 4 last night which was clearly wonderful, any film with Gus Grissom in it will do for me. It was about the Apollo moon landings and was simply but beautifully done mixing interviews with the 8 moon walkers left with excellent footage and stills.

I do think human history demands one last interview with Neil Armstrong, I respect his privacy but surely he can talk in private to someone and it be released say 10 years after he sadly passes. Imagine having a first hand record of Christopher Columbus.

One of the most amazing parts of the film was hearing Michael Collins (left in lunar orbit) talks about the moment when his circling ship slipped behind the Moon and he’s alone in something not much bigger than a camper van on his own in the Universe. The fact that he enjoyed it tells us something about the inner spirit of adventurers. The whole film was filled with optimism but not was never glib. Of course the BBC did much the same with the Dr and friends except they didn’t even need to leave Cardiff!