Brian Bollen's Blog

The modern BBC

A couple of things struck me watching broadcasting veterans David Dimbleby and Michael Grade defend the BBC on Newsnight last night (a BBC flagship 'news' programme; there is nothing the BBC enjoys more than fellating itself in public).

One, the BBC that DD and MG were defending is the BBC of the 1950s-1970s. That doesn't exist today in the world of programmes like Strictly Come Dancing, endless cookery programmes and How Big is Your Dog? The latter comes courtesy of the W1A programme which, on watching recently, I realise is not a sitcom, but a documentary.

I have thought of pitching Who Do You Think You Were?, in which an endless stream of unknown celebrities go into a deep hypnotic trance to experience reincarnation, then track down documentation (genuine or fictional, it doesn't really matter) to back up their claims. But it would very possibly get commissioned - especially if the interest shown by Claudia Winkleman and Clare Balding and Sue Perkins turns out to be more than a stretch of my imagination - and I'm not sure I could take the pressure.

Two, doesn't DD suddenly look very old? If that is what retirement does to you, it should come with a big health warning.

After Hubris

If I were a Liverpool fan, I'd be dialling down the Hubris a bit. I know they have a 16-point at the top of the so-called Premier League (still Division One to me) but singing 'We're going to win the league' really is a bit premature.

Remember how Manchester United chased down Newcastle United in 1996 when everyone thought The Magpies were home and dry? I won a bet on that, saying that Man U would do it.

Remember Gerrard's slip against Chelsea when Liverpool fans were again prematurely ejaculating?

After Hubris, comes Nemesis...

Sometimes, living on a building site is a bit hard

Sometimes, living on what is still a building site can be extremely trying. Like today, as two guys are working to rectify damage to block paving caused by vehicles that are too heavy parking on it. The noise has been unbearable at times as they cut pavoirs and tamp them down, but they are doing a good job.

Congratulations to Beat Feuz on his Lauberhorn downhill win

Congratulations to Beat Feuz of Switzerland on his win this afternoon in the Lauberhorn World Cup ski downhill race, the centrepiece of the weekend's racing action in Wengen. It is the third time he has won it, the previous victories coming in 2012 and 2018.

The official statistics show the spectators numbered 32,000, in a small town that numbers around 1,200 full-time inhabitants, on top of the 17,000 who watched the combined downhill and slalom event yesterday (January 17), won for the first time by Matthias Mayer of Austria.

SFW?

Re a 'story' on the BBC website: The Great British Bake Off: Sandi Toksvig to leave after three years.

If ever there were an SFW? (so effing what?) story, this surely is it.

Government should not be bailing out Flybe

I firmly believe that the (Conservative) government should not be bailing out the Flybe UK regional airline. But I also think that the (Labour) government should not have bailed out big banks.

What next? Bailing out freelance journalists who are finding decent work that bit harder to come by? Not bloody likely, I would expect to be the short, sharp reply.

 

Lauberhorn World Cup ski races this coming weekend

Just a reminder that this coming weekend, from January 17-19, will see the annual Lauberhorn World Cup ski races, in the Swiss Alpine resort of Wengen.

Ski Sunday on BBC2 will surely show a minute or two of skiing in between the usual tired, clichéd and increasingly embarrassing arsing about by the presenters, arsing about undertaken because the producers, directors and presenters think that that is what people tune in for, not the actual thrilling downhill and slalom races featuring the world's top Alpine skiers...

If you haven't seen 2012 and W1A...

If you haven't seen 2012 and W1A, I cannot recommend both highly enough. Mrs B and I finished watching the second series of 2012 last night, via the BBC iPlayer, and both agree it is comedy of an extremely high order.

We realised early on in series one that we had missed out almost all of the episodes first time round. I think this is because by the time we became aware of it, it was the second or third episode, and we just didn't get the joke.

I repeat: both 2012 and W1A are a must-watch.

The Terminal Decline of Doctor Who

It is not often that I am lost for words, but I do seem to be saying that a lot these days. The most recent cause for the utterance is the utterly dreadful episode of something pretending to be Doctor Who that aired on BBC1 on New Year's Day.

Where to begin? The episode title, Spyfall, confirming that it was indeed to be a spoof or parody of, or homage to, James Bond, is just cringe-making. The knowledge that it is part one of a two-parter is enough to make this lifelong watcher despair. There is not enough material to support one hour-plus of television, let alone one more.

This is not Doctor Who. It is a 10-th rate, badly written and terribly acted attempt at a programme in the science fiction genre. Oh, hang on, that is just what Doctor Who has in fact become since the current incumbent took over the role and Chris Chibnall took over as 'showrunner'.

Not one of the regular central cast can act at anything above school nativity play level, and the constant running around and shouting and deus ex machina happenings can disguise that. The only proper acting in the episode came courtesy of Stephen Fry as 'C' in MI6, and they killed him just as he was warming up.

The story is incomprehensible and the directing is risible. Are we seriously to believe that two intruders could go undetected in an ultra-high security building simply be staying behind till everyone else has gone home? That might have convinced a Blue Peter audience watching an episode of Bleep and Booster in about 1963 but not today's sophisticated audiences.

The revelation that a character known as 'O' was actually The Master might as well have come with a big label shouting 'THIS CASTING TICKS YET ANOTHER DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY BOX'. I stopped caring well before the opening credits started. At this point, I felt like weeping.

I have watched Doctor Who from the very first episode, broadcast on November 23, 1963. I have seen every iteration and this is the worst ever, by a country mile. Jodie Whitaker is the worst Doctor ever, and she has some very serious competition in the form of Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee and possibly even Peter Davidson.

This is not because she is a woman and I am a sexist dinosaur; I would happily have cheered on the actor who played Missie a couple of years ago, or Alex Kingston, who played River Song. It is because she cannot act, she has zero screen presence and is working with scripts that seem to come not from the showrunner's bottom drawer but from somewhere several levels lower.

Intelligently used references to other sci-fi tales can be rivetting, as when Peter Capaldi made clear references in October 2015 to to By His Bootstraps, a novella written by Robert Heinlein that is the definitive time travel story. Simply throwing in a ragbag of references to, inter alia, James Bond, Men in Black, UNIT ad Torchwood does not help build a great story. It just papers over the cracks.

I will watch the second episode, and the remaining eight episodes in the series, so that I can give an informed opinion, but it is sad to watch one of the televisual building blocks of my life sink into this sorry state. If it were a beloved cat, I would take it to the vet for one last time.