Ah Television, the saviour of Christmas. The well welcomed distraction from conversation, the cause of argument, the void into which we can stare as we pretend that we didn’t all just hear Grandma fart, the preoccupation that allows for all the beer to be drunk, all the Bailies to be consumed and quality streets to be mindlessly munched without any of the judgements that would be passed on any other day of the year. Is it co-incidence that John Logie Baird, the father of television was himself born like Christ on Christmas Day? Co-incidence? I think not! For those fact watchers amongst you this is a lie but my point stands.
When the Christmas schedules came out there was much condemnation from the tabloids who went ahead and ran their usual “it’s just a load of repeats” stories, predictably targeting their anger at the BBC. I’m not entirely sure what they were after Christmas really isn’t the time for avant-garde television for a number of reasons. One you will inevitably be drunk, Two, you will be talking over it, Three, you will be leaving the room to top up on crackers and posh cheese, Four, If the annual family argument erupts during the program and you are not centrally involved then you need to be able to follow both the argument and the accompanying program. Five, it needs to be snooze proof and must be therefore something so simple that a farmyard animal can follow or a repeat so you can fill in the food coma induced gaps with the memories of last Christmas. It is with this in mind that I don’t have any complaints with the Christmas scheduling except from that old bird spraffing on about sport that was frankly condescending in the extreme.
As always a great deal of this Christmas was given over to the soaps and come boxing day I found myself summarising plot points to family members who must have been napping through previous episodes. I was then asked how I knew so much about what was going on. Having not consciously watched any of the soaps I could only offer cultural osmosis as a rather scary hypothesis for my knowledge. In summery there was a lot of shouting, hair pulling, some guy living in a conservatory, some lass stabbing herself and no one having a particularly merry Christmas.
Channel Four was born to be the channel of the contrarian. It has been living up to this remit less and less of late so it was nice to see that the (once) controversial sit-com Peep Show dominated their Christmas Eve output. Easily missed documentaries gave way to the first Peep Show Christmas special and three ‘best ever’ episodes as chosen by ‘the great British public’ who, if this selection is to be extrapolated from love magic mushrooms and pissing in church. For me the genius of Peep Show is how the characters lead each other from the safe and mundane to the ridicules in so few steps that we could conceivably with only a few poor decisions find ourselves with the making of an episode. For Mark this year Christmas started with the family coming round and ended in the exiting of his Girlfriend, the breaking of a patriarchy and the shredding of a Christmas dinner. To describe the Christmas episode as being a parody of the soaps would be unfair to both as, if played straight, the script could be almost identical to the story lines of the Soap Trinity.
Other noticeable comedy came from the Royle Family whose characters are so enduring that we are more than happy to jump back into their lives once a year for a catch up and Just William which proved to be the turkey in this year’s selection box raising only a brief smile before being turned off mid flow. However I hope this doesn’t affect the progress of the show’s star Daniel Roche who was as excellent in this as in his previous role in Out Numbered.
The final stop of this festive fist of fudge fumble through the Christmas schedule is Top of The Pops. Thank God that the BBC resisted the advances of Mr. Cowell. Yes the show looks frankly a bit cheap when measured against shows such as the x-factor results shows but its classic format and the earnestness and excitability of those that come to perform on what they still class as an institution makes its once a year outing a real treat. Cee Loo Green, Elle Golding, Katy Perry, Plan B and Coldplay were all really great as was Jason Derulo’s wardrobe when he appeared looking like a black Freddie Krueger had fallen into the Tron machine.
I did also intend to include in this post the conclusion of all the reality TV shows that had their finals in the lead up to Christmas but as is the nature of these things who still cares? Not I. For when I tried to recall the name of the winner of X-Factor (let alone the runner up) I found myself heading to Google, a sure sign not to bother if you ask me.
I hope you all had a Happy Christmas and I will be back on a more regular footing come the New Year.
All The Best,
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