Wednesday 16 July 2008

Bonekickers: Worst BBC TV Show Ever…?

Well, I’ve given it two episodes now, mainly because the writers (Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah) also created the incomparable ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes’. And because I thought the first episode might just be a deliberate dud, designed to hook viewers and failing badly, and it might settle down and get better.

The first episode of the series achieved 6.8 million viewers, but I haven’t yet seen any figures for the second. I’m guessing about 4000 (and those mostly the production team’s friends and relatives).

But it is without a shadow of a doubt, the worst BBC tv production I’ve ever seen. And the thought that someone greenlighted this pile of childish cack for prime-time fills me with despair. Reviews have been uniformly hideous, and even though some poor soul has set up the inevitable fan site, the comments sections are deluged with irritated watchers demanding the heads of the writers for foisting such unadulterated, poorly-made, inconsistent rubbish on them.

I can only hope that the writers are playing an elaborate practical joke, designed to see just how much leeway their other smash hits have gained them with the Beeb, and the characters will break the fourth wall in the finale and say to the audience ‘Gotcha!’.

And with this series costing the BBC license fee payer god-only-knows how much (if it was more than £37 and a round of drinks for the camera crew, it was to much…), they certainly have….

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear! Pity, really, following the excellent "Criminal Justice", the first TV 'entertainment' in years for which I actually made a date and sat down to watch. That was good but still nothing reaches the true excellence of 'Tinker, Tailor ..."

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that was prety good. I'll stick my neck out and say they probably worked to somewhat different production standards.. ;)

madne0 said...

Britain is home to some of the best, if not THE best, comedy shows ever made. Fawlty Towers, The Office, Extras, Red Dwarf, Black Adder...But drama? With the exception of Poirot, which i quite like, there hasn't been a single one that can even come close to an average US drama show, never mind a good one like (and i'm just going to stick with recent ones) The Wire, The Shield or the new Battlestar Galactica.
Even Dr. Who, that was supposed to be so great, is completely unwatchable, laughable crap.

Anonymous said...

Well, to be fair, it's managed some pretty good ones in the past - police detective dramas ('Dalziel and Pasco', 'Between the Lines') and political thrillers ('Edge of Darkness') have been the best.

It doesn't do potboilers as well as the States, it's true, though 'Spooks' was quite good for the first couple of seasons.

Agree about 'Dr Who' though. Utter childish-but-'right on' rubbish. Only made bearable by the thought you could be watching 'Torchwood' instead...

Ross said...

I agree with madne0 with respect to British and US drama series. People often go on about the dreck on US television but the amount of good programmes they produce is phenomenal. There are a couple of dozen current US TV series that are better than anything being produced over here.

I blame the omnipresence of soaps for hogging all the resources.

Anonymous said...

"I blame the omnipresence of soaps for hogging all the resources."

I'd blame the omnipresence of reality shows and 'Cashing in on antiques by the sea home rescue' programmes.

Then I realise they don't take up very many resources....

Anonymous said...

apparantly there's more and better to come.......


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/will-bbc2s-new-thriller-charm-us-into-taking-notice-of-climate-change-869586.html