10 O'Clock Recorded...

I do not have a TV license, so I have to wait a while for whatever to get uploaded onto 4OD or iPlayer or uTorrent. Therefore, I missed out on the LIVE excitement of 10 O'Clock Live, which is a new topical satire comedy programme with the same cast as the Alternative Election Night, which actually beat ITV when it came to ratings. David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker, Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne. Looks good, it really does. However, something being live and made very quickly to keep it topical can disrupt quality. Let's look:

First off was Jimmy Carr running off the week's headlines. This format suits him, with snappy one liners, and it was fairly topical, some of the jokes about very recent events, like the resignation of Alan Johnson. It did tend to rely on crude innuendo, mainly the reason why Ed Balls will never be anything ever. These were hit-and-miss, as anybody will tell you over at Saturday Night Live and every sketch show ever. And Carr looks nervous.

David Mitchell has a table discussion about bankers, something which has been done to death, but Mitchell brings some new ideas to it and some enthusiasm. I'm guessing this isn't supposed to be a knock-out laugh, but it wasn't great, if very short as well. Not developed enough. Audience claps a lot after generic crowd pleasing statements all over the show as well.

Charlie Brooker does his usual narration thing about Sarah Palin (and later about Tunisia), which is good as he always is and above the usual swearing which people think that he is. Good segment to the programme. The less said about Lauren Laverne's solo segment, the better. However, she has received a lot of criticism for this show, when I say that, I mean Twitter, despite her not being known for comey and being brought in to be a sort of grounding force, I'm assuming.

Carr does a holiday broadcast for Tunisia, fairly funny. Mitchell does his corner thing and rants a wee bit. More Brooker, Carr talks to some mental environmentalist who likes white clouds, Mitchell debates tuition fees with a minister, round table discussion. END.

First of all, this is needed. A topical show is something that is incredibly lacking in the UK, with only Have I Got News For You being prevalent in the schedule and the rest of it being drama or sitcoms that appear only when they fucking want to. Great. Considering how much America has, with the Daily Show being the most cited example and rightly so as Jon Stewart is probably the most influential man in America right now. Probably. Actually, fuck it, he is. Yeah. So this is something the UK needed, it's here and it is...slightly above average.

The cast is solid, they work to their strengths. They bounce off of each other very well, delivery is decent. There is something missing, some warmth, some comfort. Everything seems rushed, it is early in the show's history, but I feel they are packing far too much in, everybody talks too fast and everyone seems panicked, whilst the issues being talked about do not get the depth that some of them deserve. As the show gets along, it may become more familiar and easier fo rthe cast and crew, they can get into a sort of rhythm.

Yeah, watch this. It'll take a while, but it'll get good. Hopefully.

No likey, no lighty.

Oh, how I love the trashy Take Me Out (ITV1).

The show is reverently hosted by Paddy McGuiness, having a lot of fun with a decent paycheck I'll bet, who seems to be Northern plasticine stuffed into a suit and given food driven innuendo.

Let the pork meet the pies indeed. Let the bacon meet the butty.

Recently, it seems to be given a lottery-esque budget boost, with the date now in a foreign country, the fascist state run by Fernando it seems. He's gone a long way from just owning a restaurant. If you don't understand, you don't watch nearly enough Take Me Out.

The women seem to be trashier and more desperate. If this sounds sexist, chauvinistic (in a male sense, not a jingoistic one) and slightly bigoted, it is. Whatever. Get over it. Hardly any lights are turned off after mentioning that they're from Gretna or wherever, whereas in the last season you were lucky to stay with half of the lights on after that bombshell. Maybe they're less shallow. Discuss.

One of the "talents" was shooting a billard ball at a coin to get it into a glass. What? Does that impress sober people?

It did. The same man spent a minute discussing his "OCD" because his cleaning products all faced the same way. However, he was a family man so that makes up for the boredom apparently. Yay. Love is in the air.

It is incredible trash, that is on every week and I will probably watch it every week, despite me thinking it is utter crap.

Let the hippo meet the crisy.

Oh and there's an advert with Jedward and Omid Djalili. Bricks will be shat.

I think I'm having an Episode...

I think it's about bloody time something ripped the piss out of Hollywood. Yeah, Hollywood. On its pedastal, looking down on everything and telling us that it is better than us. Yeah, screw Hollywood, we need something to make jolly good fun out of it.

It's been done before? Dammit.

How about TV? Yeah...but that's been done before as well. Hmm.

So was there any need for Episodes (BBC)? I suppose not.

However, there is always a need for substantial quality and this brought Tamsin Grieg (Green Wing, Black Books) and Stephen Mangan (Green Wing, Free Agents), two highlights of British comedy at the moment. I have laughed at these two before, so why couldn't I do the same again? There is no reason, right? Hmm.

Well, we have a quite generic look at the workings behind television. Grieg and Mangan are married and have won awards for their show, of which I cannot remember, but a Hollywood TV maker guy offers them to remake it in America. Live in LA for a while. WOW. Sounds like every person's dream. Ben Miller scowls in the background (the only funny bit of the programme). However, we get complaints before they've even left Britain about, "Oh. I'm unsure." Whiny bitch. The fact that sells it is that they get to write the US version as well, which to me sounds like a pitfall. Take the money and run, let some pretentious moron write it. That could well be my skewed moral compass there.

They arrive and look at their massive house, filled with fake columns. Hilarity ensues. Scene with a bath that is too big. Hilarity.

Then they realise that nobody has watched their show, despite people telling them that they had. There are American accents also, aren't those Americans silly?! Yeah, it's been done before as well. Go away. They get their star actor, Richard Griffiths, who is typically English and he is rejected as being too British. He comes back with an American accent and it isn't funny to them, or anyone in the viewing public. So they get Matt LeBlanc!

Yeah, the "big draw" was Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Joey), yet he appears in all of twenty seconds at the beginning. The rest of the programme is flashback. Pulp Fictiony. Yeah, cannot blame LeBlanc, he read his three lines perfectly.

The programme is so subverted, it is not funny. The process isn't funny, so why should the show? Geddit? If that was their purpose, then they should get multiple prizes, yet I doubt that was the point of this tedious and awkward show. Everything is obvious and forced, a gatekeeper who cannot remember the writers a key example. This show screams of underwhelment (word?).

It still has time to improve which I hope it does, perhaps with more LeBlanc factor.

Who would have thought anybody would have said that ever?!