TV Reviews / Previews
There are four certainties in life - birth, death, taxes, and reality television shows. The latest, and best publicised, is ITV's 'Hell's Kitchen'. What happens - if you don't already know - is that two chefs train a bunch of morons to cook restaurant-standard food for people who were famous when your parents were young.
What's the catch? The two team leaders, Gary Rhodes and Jean-Christophe Novelli, seem as if they're contractually obliged to shriek and wail like crazy-eyed biblical prophets at the slightest opportunity.
That Alan Sugar. He's such a hard-ass isn't he? With his big boardroom and his two old assistants and his rubbish e-mail telephones that nobody wants.
If the makers of The Apprentice had brought in a fat goat in a top hat and a monocle to fire people, the show would still be the best thing on TV. In fact, it'd
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Picture the scene: imagine you're a chav. An absolute, grade-A specimen of a chav at that; a sovereign-wearing, Daily Star-reading, barely literate idiot scally of colossal proportions.
Now imagine that it's Saturday night and, for some reason - maybe you had some debilitating accident while trying to shoplift a twenty-four crate of Stella - you've found yourself housebound. There's no way you'll be able to make it out; no way you'll be able to get down your local Wetherspoons and indulge in loud-mouth drunken singalongs with all your idiot pals.
Sounds awful, doesn't it? Well, fear no more, for ITV has the answer ...
Explosive scud missile information for anyone who still thinks EastEnders is worth half an hour of their time. Jake Moon is not, repeat NOT leaving the soap. Which is interesting, as he was apparently sacked several weeks ago.
Jake's played by an actor (for those of you that aren’t sure) and he’s called Joel Beckett. More important to him is that some sneaky gossip was leaked to The Sun claiming he may actually to able to pay off his new Mini Cooper after all.
One of the most mong-brained ideas for a TV show ever must be Stars In Their Eyes. Whoever thought of dressing up poor people like famous people and making them sing deserves a bloody medal.
Although it's still being made, the show cannot possibly top the moment when the fake Chris DeBurgh and the real Chris de Burgh sang a duet version of Lady In Red that even Radio 4 listeners found unbearably smug.
So a new show was needed for crosseyed gypsies to clap their hands to on Saturday teatimes. And lo, Hit Me Baby One More Time was created. And, oddly, it's great.
Reality TV is full of surprises. Just when it looks like the whole industry is knackered, coughing and honking like a clown's funny car, something new comes along to shake it back into life.
First there was The Apprentice, based on the American series starring odd-haired entrepeneur Donald Trump basically screaming at contestents next to a helicopter on top of a skyscraper.
Then the BBC remade it with Alan Sugar and a whole array of those crappy Amstrad e-mail telephones. And it's mostly a success. Never underestimate the joy of watching self-assurred idiots fighting amongst themselves.
Rolling news is great. Where else can you sit down in front of out TV all day and watch the same six news stories go round and round and round?
But sometimes they can't help but show their failings, either. Take this weekend, for example, when all the news channels were waiting for The Pope to die.
All done and finished, thank God, the second most pointless televisional skidmark in history (you have to guess the first), Channel 4’s The Games.
After a tense final Olivier took the Gold, H.R.H Princess…blah, blah, blah – who cares?! Who could possibly ever care about this tosh??!!
