The Hotel

Here I will talk about my guiltiest pleasure at the moment. Apart from what I get up to on weekends. Yikes.

I am, of course, talking about The Hotel on Channel 4. Made by the same people that followed pregnant women around, this follows the day-to-day like around a mid-range bed and breakfast. It has its share of characters, none of which are unbelievable, and situations. There's a wedding, a proposal, kids and next week, a psychic.

It is utterly delightful and heart warming.

This show seems to capture the essence of calm through its chilled atmosphere and quirky staff, most of whom are Eastern European like any good British hotel. There's a creepy owner, who likes like he wandered out of Psychoville or a Little Britain sketch. He always arrives with flowers, begging them to be put into water with "a little bit of sugar". Innuendo ahoy. There's the head chef, a swearing hipster who seems to get into arguments with everyone in the kitchen and out, yet comes across as a genuine and good person. He even seems to know how to cook with his often repeated catchphrase "If you wouldn't stick your cock in it, it's hot enough."

A lovely receptionist seems to keep the guests happy while the staff can barely understand each other inbetween turning up to work drunk and smashing plates as if it were a Greek wedding. I think there was one actually.

The main "star" is the Welsh manager, one of the most hands on managers I have ever seen. He takes order, he cleans, he feeds the pigs. Nobody knows why there are pigs there by the way. He helps in the kitchen, he sorts out the rooms, he does the special requests. There seems to be a feeling that if he wasn't there, it would fall apart. Not that it isn't falling apart.

The first episode focuses around a proposal, which seems to go down well. I mean, she accepts, despite his cheesy picture of some glowstick thing. Then the Welsh manager comes out with champagne, soaking up goodwill, and all is fine. It's quite heartwarming and some of the one-on-one conversations really show this. We also see a wedding, which fucks over the kitchen staff. Complaints from TripAdvisor from racist guests. Kids running around everywhere. Men falling over. Ghost shower.

Can't explain that one.

All in all, it is a delightful show, yet incredibly terrifying. Is my hotel run like that? When I go into a hotel, this is how it's run? People nicking wedding cake? Flowers with sugar? The kitchen fucking everybody over?

This is why I stay the fuck out of British hotels.

Doctor Who: Series 6 (So far...)

Let's get into it, this review is late as it is.

First double parter answered one question and made several more. Fuck you, Steven Moffat. Either way, it was a great way to kick off a series and the opening double kept momentum up, something which I think should be done in every series after this. It has been talked about to death on blogs and whatnot, so I won't go any further, but give it a watch. It's better than Merlin.

The next episode...had pirates. Awesome. This bit of whimsy was pretty good and it had Hugh Bonneville, just back from his excellent turn in Twenty Twelve. However, the episode was merely a usual "meet a group of people and save them" episode hidden behind a skull and crossbones. While the introduction of a child raised emotion, it was hardly enough. There was also a gaping plothole where a man disappears and turns up again, which suggests cracks or poor editing. We also got a very pretty, yet hollow villain, played by Lily Cole. It did suggest something that may come up later on in the series, but let's not go into that. Enough geeks have. And I'm not a geek. At least not one that can be bothered.

Now, the most recent episode, The Doctor's Wife. With an episode title like that, it attracts attention, like that massive cop-out that was The Next Doctor. This was written by Neil Gaiman, an excellent comic writer, best known for his book, Sandman, and for the book that was adapted into Stardust. Expectations = High. no pressure.

It kicks off into high gear with promises of Time Lords and the like, so they go outside of the universe. There they meet patchwork people, an Ood and the scrumptious Suranne Jones, playing Idris. The planet tries to eat the TARDIS and the Doctor and Idris try to stop it.

And Rory dies again.

Why was this episode so good? It wasn't the most complex by any means. There was no frustrating timey-wimey like in the opening two parter's opening five minutes. There was good acting, however, as Matt Smith stopped acting like a baby and added some gravitas which has been missed since the reign of Tennant. His relationship with the TARDIS is explored, something which has only been hinted at, and like all good series, it hints at what is to come in the rest of the series. Not to mention some quoteworthy lines that I'm sure will be on T-Shirts at Comic Con.

Arthur Darville proves to be the best actor/character on the show again and Amy Pond is slightly less annoying, especially as she doesn't seem to know everything anymore. Neither did the Doctor, which was a nice change. All in all, it was a good episode, probably the best of the series so far, though the stakes did seem lower than in the opening attack of the series.

Next week is a double parter which looks incredibly dull and could have been fit into one. Like the Silurians one or that Impossible Pit or that other one which escapes me, but was rotten.

Go for it. Geronimo.

This review has been incredibly rushed. I may start doing them in video form.