If you’re like me, you probably spent Christmas either in the pub or in front of the TV recovering from an almost incurable cold, digesting the contents of the Turkey whilst trying to watch the movie “Big” for the tenth time, or try to avoid watching Bill Murray in “Scrooged” yet again, and most probably after realizing that there is nothing on, you’d turn to 24 hour news.
Except 24 hour news this December really, really scrapped the bottom of the barrel. Remember those murders that happened in the Ipswich area of prostitutes? Remember how the 24 hour news media decided to have a “ratings war”, almost turning it into a CSI episode? And all this to get the most “coverage”, whatever that means.
Sky News was the worst culprit, gloating over every detail – even going to the trouble of hiring ex-professional cops, professional forensic, and more analysts than you could shake a stick at.
It was sickening to see how they pouring over every minute detail. I’m also sick of the “slowly zooming onto the picture of people’s faces”, it’s like they are saying – “they are evil! EVIL! Just look at their eyes!”
Heck, at one point I actually thought Sky were gonnna introduce “Lieutenant Columbo” as their main detective, “Quincy” as their medical examiner and, just in case anything went awry, they’d probably hire
Although at least you could escape to movies, or the Internet (unfortunately it was down the whole month for me, so I was stuck with the TV and a horrible cold).
And then there are the soaps. Remember uplifting Christmas TV? No? That’s probably because of the soaps. Nearly every year, without fail you have a story about how great this Christmas is going to be, then WHAM! – The main protagonist gets the worst Christmas ever.
But at least we could depend on the national channels. BBC gave us the much hyped Disney movie, “High School Musical” which was fun, even though it felt like Grease, smelled like West Side Story and had more fake singing than that episode of Saved by the Bell where the cast start singing in a band that becomes an overnight sensation, for some reason.
And if there was any doubt that Lenny Henry was never funny, then the BBC gave us the rare opportunity to see Henry front a TV show that blatantly copies Harry Hill’s “TV Burp”, except it’s for the Internet and doesn’t require Henry to do anything of remote importance, except perhaps repeat jokes he did in the 80s.
ITV did show some good movies and had some interesting TV shows, whilst Channel 4 seemed to be taken over by “Deal or No Deal” – it’s getting boring now, as soon as they’ve lost the £250,000 it becomes uninteresting very fast. And what’s with the crowd exploding every time a box is opened? Why does Noel believe that chanting “Blue! Blue! Blue!” will change the contents of the box? Why is the camera man always fixated on the random blonde girl, which this month seems to be Nicola?
Channel 5 didn’t have much, but their US version did start showing the original Mission:Impossible TV series from the sixties.
Christmas TV, as always flattered to disappoint. There were some excellent highlights, and perhaps I’m being a bit harsh – seeing as I have a cold and expected a few comedies here and there.
All in all, Christmas was better with the TV off then the TV on.
