Delta flies under the radar

There was something quite likeable about the latest BBC3 Comedy pilot, Delta Forever, a tale of obsessive book fans connected by a website.

The script worked hard to squeeze quite a lot of ideas into a very short space. The writing team of Jon Hunter, Misha Manson Smith, Holly Walsh, Greg McHugh and Ben Bond managed to cover the weirdness of media-two-point-wotsit better than almost any other script yet to tackle the subject. Many have tried and failed to nail online culture in a TV format, to our mind at least this is the first time it’s been done successfully, certainly such an effective satire of the web-wide-world we live in, is quite rare just now. Delta Forever manages to cover obsessive fans, video bloggers, ebay opportunists and creepy ad-men trying to get their head around web culture.

It helps that the whole thing was supported by a bunch of perky performances, notably by comic Greg McHugh (whose brilliant Gary: Tank Commander character debuted over on More4 this week), whose bitter obsessive chews up the webcam, and is easily the stand-out turn of the piece. Also of note was rentabitch Antonia Campbell Hughes, and sketch stalwart Jonny Sweet (the remaining third of the House Of Windsor not currently moonlighting as an Imbetweener over on E4)

We’re pretty sure that, unlike the baffling headfuck of Phoo Action or the dark twists of Being Human, there’s not enough lurking beneath the surface here to warrant a full series. It wasn’t well promoted, and flew in rather under the radar, which is a shame: Delta Forever had a lot going for it as a self contained little teleplay with something to talk about, proving at least that someone at BBC3 has more than a surface understanding of the interweb.

A Letter To Lily Allen

Dear Lily Allen

We gave Lily Allen and Friends an extra week to settle in before writing this, it seemed the decent thing to do.

It’s not working is it Lil? I mean bless you, you’re great, You really are. You’re fresh, and funny, and spunky, when you’re off the cuff you’re a treat to watch, and it genuinely is great to have you on the telly. I am genuinely fond of you. But the show…the show. It’s just no there, it doesn’t work.

If you hadn’t done this format, then obviously someone else would, and I can see why it was an easy pitch, what with all your myspace chums and entertaining blogs and all. Problem is BBC3 seem to think they can graft the internet to the side of the telly and get something wonderful and new with the best of both worlds. Like apple trees. And maybe you can…the ideal t’internet-telly format is definitely out there, skulking in the bushes waiting to be discovered. The beeb are getting there: the iPlayer maybe the best decision the BBC have made in a decade.

But BBC3’s awkward frankensteining of web two-point-whatever and anything they happen to have on their schedule just feels so false and so forced.

Your chat show guests are great and you’re doing a good job. Last week David Mitchell looked slightly bemused, a tiny bit embaressed, but seemed to be enjoying himself. Cuba Gooding Jnr obviously didn’t care where he was…up to the point you stopped the euphemisms and just talked about his cock. That was a great moment Lily, well done.

This week though, you seemed a bit hesitant and a bit unsure of yourself. Is this because of the bad reviews? Or have you maybe seen the show back yourself and realised that basing the show on web content wasn’t that great an idea in hindsight?

Here’s where you’ve got it wrong.

- The internet, especially social networking, web two-point-infinite gubbins is all about interactivity, about people taking ownership of their media and everyone’s lives being synced together. The audience need to feel part of the show.

- But your show seems to think a Social Networking/web experience can be applied to TV by showing VT’s of whatever ‘hilarious’ Mpegs have been emailed to your researcher by their Mum. Getting your audience to submit wacky facts about themselves isn't it either. You're missing the point. And didn't Graham Norton already do all of that five years ago?

Giving the kids the vote for the bands they want to see is a great idea, though hardly the most original. Replace online voting with SMS messaging and you’ve got CD:UK. It's not really enough.

Anyway, I hope this makes sense to you. Please carry on having fun, maybe try and influence some tweaks to the format. But don’t be too upset if it gets taken off. You’re doing your best and it’s not your fault.

Smile!

Marc B

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.

Human Behaviour/ The Family of Blood: BBC3 Goes Goth

BBC3’s new vision rolled on last night and we’re really beginning to feel the Russell T Davies-isation of drama as we know it. Give it a year and all telly will be like this: action, a bit risqué, cheeky, with obvious pop, and real accents. And you know what? That’s not such a band thing. Last nights’ Being Human was basically Queer As Folk meets Torchwood but, you know, without the Gay stuff. Check the pedigrees: Writer Toby Whithouse has written for Doctor Who (RTD) and Torchwood (RTD), Director Declan O’Dwyer comes from the very-much post-RTD Robin Hood, producer Matthew Bouch worked on the Sarah Jane Adventures (guess who?) and actor Russell Tovey was in the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Being Human is BBC3’s latest try at proper, hip drama with an edge. Last weeks opening gambit –Phoo Action- was hit and miss to say the least (but still managed to get commissioned for a full series), this latest offering has a little more going for it.

In the spirit of optimism, let’s start with the good stuff. Fundamentally, Being Human is a good show. It really is. It’s a bit hammy, and there’s plenty wrong with it (of which more later), but fundamentally its beating heart is in the right place. It has teeth. It has an edge, and it says everything about the Beeb’s approach to teen-to-twenties drama in 2008.

That beating heart we mentioned comes from Werewolf Russell Tovey (George), he’s a joy. A clumsy, cockney, loveably jug-eared joy. He keeps the whole thing afloat until Ghostly Andrea Riseborough (Annie) appears, and she’s a joy too, all broad Barnsley loveliness (“Am a Gorst…am not fonder the word”). The two of them are so genuinely likeable you wish they’d come round and haunt your bedroom.

Secondly the balance between light and dark works quite well: this is, after all, meant to be a bit Penny-Dreadful, but with sex and jokes (Post Torchwood again), and it pulls it off. The climax, with the changing George locked in a room with his ex was properly scary. It was well paced, it worked really well.

The script worked too, for the most part. Witty one liners, and well thought-out characters, decent gags and situations, and some real invention splattered here and there. Like everything else it was a bit RTD, but as we said, everything is these days (and in Russell we trust.).

And if only we could stop there. If only it was just jug-eared George and lovely Annie. But it’s not. This is a show about three people. It’s also a show about three different takes on immortality and monstrosity, and it’s about three different mythical monsters: A Ghost, a werewolf, and a Vampire. And in this third all the problems lie.

Leaving aside Guy Flanagan’s performance for a sec, the problem here is in Vampirism itself. If you’re going to write about Vampires, then you need to create a Vampire Mythology: who are they? What do they do? What are the rules? No-one can ever seem to resist the gathering-in-night-clubs-plotting-world-domination-tortured-by-what-they-are- beautiful-sexy-blood-ritual-sophisticates route. Blame Blade and Bram Stoker, it’s all their fault. More to the point blame bloody Anne Rice, whose Vamprotica (™ that joke isn’t funny 2008) pretty much defined Vampire Fiction post-Interview. Buffy pulled it off, but Buffy was a bit special. Similarly now-forgotten Jack Davenport vehicle Ultra Violet managed it by making the mythology itself a bit interesting and adding a dash of pre-CSI technobabble. Being Human had none of this. There has clearly been a Vampire mythology here, and bits of it are dangled in smart suits in front of us, attempting to tantalise the audience with suggested depths of back story. You get the impression the back story probably isn’t very good.

The Vampire stuff just seemed to get in the way of the more likeable characters. Tortured Vampirism here is represented by Guy Flanagan’s Mitchell, a skinny, dashing Orlando-Bloomish chap with little hints of goth in his outfit (wristbands, jewellery), dark hooded eyes, and a slow, deep stillness to his soul that suggests something fractured and uncomfortable, but old and dangerous. Or at least it’s meant to (we know because someone goes to the trouble of describing these qualities for us in the first 5 minutes), in truth he just feels wooden. In fairness to Guy, Brad Pitt fell victim to the same problems in Interview With The Vampire: tortured introspection coming off as wooden under-acting.

He’s not all bad though: when interacting with his Pal’s, best friend George and new Friend Annie, he’s a lot more likeable and the chemistry in the trio works. It’s just when he’s taken off on his own it goes a little wrong. It’s not the worst Vampire performance ever, but it’s getting there. When the mass-Vamps are stuck in an underground nightclub you actually realise you’re watching the first Vampire-Mythology on screen that is even worse than Queen of the Damned.

And Queen of the Damned was rubbish.

There’s other stuff too: the music choices were an uninspired Ad-man’s view of what a teen/cult show needs :Amy Winehouse’ ‘Rehab’, Pulp’s ‘Common People’ and maudlin-introspection-soundtrack-hit-of-choice ‘Chasing Cars’. Although in fairness this is from the RTD school of soundtracks too. It could have been worse: it could have been all NIN and The Cure (every goth-horror ever) or sub-Dawsons Creek acoustic warbledge (Buffy). It’s such a wasted opportunity though. What about little tounge in cheek nods: ‘For Lovers’ by Wolfman and Pete Doherty? ‘Ghosts’ by Laura Marling? Anything by the Howling Wolves or Vampire Weekend? It would have added a sense of fun and a little more genuine youth credibility.

Thing is, we genuinely think we could get into this. There’s enough tantalising little snippets to explore (how did Annie die? What happens after death? Why is she still here? How did George become a Wolf? How old is Mitchell? Why does he object to his Vampish instincts? How come that bloke from Hustle gets in everything?), and the answers could hopefully be intigueing. The difficulty is walking the line between great character drama and spooky gothed-out cult hit. It can be done (Buffy and Angel) but it’s very very hard when dealing with these subjects. But if Phoo Action can be picked up, then surely this is a safer prospect?

New BBC3 Reviewed: Phoo Action.

The relaunched BBC3 kicked into gear last night with an emphasis on shiny bright colours, shiny bright people and of course Web two-point-whatever (surely we should be due an upgrade by now?) that TV really should have cottoned onto two years back at least.

Two shows last night defined the new look channel, the much-anticipated (although in some cases only to smirk) Lily Allen and Friends, more on which later, and flagship 'drama' Phoo Action, and that’s quite the oddest prospect yet.

First up was the shock that Jose Vanders was introducing the programmes. Jose is a fresh-faced (looking particularly well scrubbed last night) and obscenely talented singer-songstress who we happen to have actually met a few times. Last seen supporting GoodBooks just before Christmas, it was a jolt to see her fronting TV, but then letting anyone on the box is what BBC3 is all about these days, and besides she did a pretty decent job of it. To investigate Jose a bit more click here.

Phoo Action is a really, really odd show. And not because of its content: Basketball-headed villains, blue mutant henchman, magic hotpants. These are par for the course. No, what made Phoo Action so odd is that, almost 24 hours later, we still have no idea if it was

a) Bubblegum-fresh, entertaining and cool

Or

b) Absolutly fucking awful.

Seriously we have no idea. One moment you’re drifting along on a tide of eye candy and a great soundtrack allowing your nether-brain to get some sleep while your eyes and what passes for your consciousness are distracted by the bright lights and pretty colours. The next you’re cowering in startled dis-belief that something so brain-rottingly shit could be allowed onto your screen.

For an explanationwe should look to the committee-led scientifically proven box-ticking that went into toddlershaped mindfuck BooBah in 2004 – a show that mesmerised the under 4’s but seemed like a psychedelic migraine to anyone older. Like that show each gurgling voice, each sparkly explosion, each musical chime exists only for the ears of a very specific demographic. If you’re outside it then it seems senseless. So if you’re under 20 Phoo Action was probably quite good, if you’re over 30 it’s bonkers, and not in a good way... and if you’re in the middle it doesn’t quite feel right.

There are things it does universally right: thanks to Jamie Hewlett's unique imagination the whole thing looked spectacular. Jamie Winstone seems like one to watch and looks great in hotpants and a red wig, and the soundtrack was a well-chosen mash of electro-new and stompy-old (CSS and Supergrass at either end). The nightclub dance in particular was a great moment.

On the other hand, for a character who is meant to be an ass-kicking, breakdancing, masked kung-fu cop, Terry Phoo is a disappointingly wet lead. His fighting and his dancing didn’t really fizzle at all.

An interesting and tone-setting start for BBC3, let’s see where it takes us.

More BBC Threesome

Some more details on the BBC3 Revamp we mentioned earlier. Chortle have done some more digging on the Comedy content.


Other comedy tidbits to look out for include Trexx and Flipside, a "multi-channel sitcom" about Hip Hop. Although what will be "Multi Channel" has not been revealed. Another, Coming Of Age, has been written by 19 year old First Year student Tim Dawson, although early reports have cast it as a proto-Two Pints, which frankly we probably don't need. There's also another sketchshow called Scallywagga.

BBC Threesome

BBC 3, the channel that bought you Can Fat Teens Hunt, are aiming to revolutionise the concept of Television as we know it, or at least that’s what they’d have us believe by the tone of controller Danny Cohen over at Media Guardian.

Apparently the channel will ‘Simulcast’ (a point right there for anyone playing Bullshit Bingo: The Media Edition) all of its programming on ‘Multiple Platforms’. Which actually means “it’ll be on the internet at the same time it’s on the telly”.

Give them their dues, this genuinely is an innovation in British TV. No Channel outside of rolling news has dared to broadcast directly on the web, although it does feel a little like the Beeb are Guinea-pigging the concept with the channel they risk least with.

Cohen’s breathless excitement is evident:

"At BBC3 we should be known for pioneering risk, and be obsessed with all things new - new talent, new programmes, and a new relationship between television and the internet.

The thinking behind this rebrand of the channel is that we have, in effect, created a BBC3 world in which our content can move seamlessly between TV, online and mobile.

We have a fantastic lineup of programmes and we are going to make them available wherever young people want them."

Which is all well and good until you look at the new schedule, which despite a fancy new logo (we’ll miss those little blob things) doesn’t feel all that new and risky to us: docu-soaps on single Mums, teen pregnancy and modelling, make over shows “with a twist”, returning American imports like Heroes, a refresh of the old-as-the-hills comedy variety show with The Wall, and a new series of Gavin and Stacey, which admittedly did deserve a second go as it’s quite fine. All of which could probably be pretty decent in their own place, but are hardly unfamiliar BBC3 ground.

There a few genuine innovations. Lily Allen And Friends could actually be quite good…Lily herself is an engaging enough personality, although they’ve been cagey about the format so we’ll hold off until we’ve seen it. The Wrong Door is being described as a “sketch show with CGI”, but quite what that means is anyone’s guess. It won’t be as good as Modern Toss, that’s for sure. Then there’s this

“New entertainment format Upstaged will be a mixture of talent show, stamina and social networking, which Cohen has described as "risky".”

Which sounds horrible.

Best of all is the drama:

Six drama pilots will include Phoo Action, written by Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett; thriller The Things I Haven't Told You; Being Human, a tale of a vampire, ghost and werewolf who share a house; and Mrs In-Betweeny, created by Shameless writer Paul Abbott and Caleb Ranson.

The proposition of a drama by the man that draws Gorillaz definitely spikes our interest and the Vampire thing could well be good.

BBC3 then. There’s more to it than crap docusoaps, Two Pints... and Doctor Who Confidential, and if you’re too lazy to leave the computer and go to the Telly you don’t have to. It’s the future.