Channel 4
Friday, 8.00pm
A couple of weeks ago Claudia Winkleperson told her studio audience that “this is the shittest show you’ll ever see… I don’t think it’s even on TV, I think it’s some sort of home video.” A nice Gerald Ratner moment, but she's overstating the case. This isn't truly terrible, it’s just a lousy show presented by a not very amusing woman that is based on a slightly saggy premise. It’s just Room 102 with Claudia Winkleman waddling around the studio behind her broken eyelids. It’s just TV Heaven, Telly Hell with the dumb one from Film 2011 making flimsy innuendo about cock and trying on ski-suits to more laughter than is ever strictly necessary. Well, maybe she had a point actually. It’s not great.
3
WRINKLY PICKLE MAN
Annons
Sky Atlantic
Monday, 9.00pm
**Beware the Spoiler!**
After ten episodes of this, we should have guessed it would culminate with baby dragons crawling out of Emilia Clarke's vagina. You've just got to hope that enough people watched this first series to make sure they've got enough cash to animate the dragons properly in series two. No amount of lesbian vs. midget swordplay will make up for shoddy CGI dragons and green-screen acting. HBO isn't the fucking BBC, this isn't fucking Dr Who, and shit dragons just won't do. Also, it'd be nice to see Joffrey eaten by a wolf, a lingering shot of the eunuch's genitals and Sean Bean's head as a wise-cracking dream sequence staple.
10
OBSCENE BEAN
Comedy Central
Sunday, 6.00pm
Wait wait wait, so does this mean South Park's over? Stan had his tenth birthday and suddenly everything he'd ever enjoyed started to seem like it was shit. He's become a cynical arsehole and his friends don't fancy spending time with him. Is this Matt Stone and Trey Parker admitting that they've become too old to achieve satisfaction through jokes about rape, shit and anti-semites? Are they the cynical arseholes? Are we the friends who don't want to spend time with them any more? Well as much as this episode was more boring than any other cartoon that involves peoples' guts shitsploding will ever be, Matt and Trey aren't exactly Matt Groening; as in, I'd still shake their hands and buy them a beer, not gnaw their dick off, paint it yellow and post it to their mum.
6
FRANK GRIMES
Annons
BBC2
Saturday, 1.35am
Documentary about an eccentric Somerset farmer who set up a pop concert in his backyard. We watch amiable bumpkin Mike Eavis working his way out of debt on his dairy farm by spawning a counterculture. He achieves his dream when he finally gets to meet The Levellers, but then the whole thing collapses into tragedy when he is forced to watch Basement Jaxx headline the festival that he built with his own bare hands, and his beloved back garden turns into a mating ground for Guardian readers. Ends with him weeping into a Laura Barton article.
8
MICHAEL EAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
BBC2
Sunday, 8.00pm
Centuries after the myth of the little ships at Dunkirk is forgotten, the societies built on the ruins of these isles will talk of the day Cliff Richard sung "Summer Holiday" on a rainy Centre Court. The plucky optimism. The gloomy irony. The stripy blazer. That day, Cliff consolidated all the semiotics of Englishness into one extraordinary act of singalong defiance, a gorgeous metaphor for an entire nation and temperament. I imagine he still rubs himself off just thinking about it – a bottle of Durex Play in one hand, the neck of one of his own-label wine bottles protruding gingerly from his superannuated anus. Here, Sir Cliff is interviewed at length about his crowning achievement. Also features some other people playing tennis.
7
MORRISSEYSAW
BBC2
Saturday, 11.25pm
One day, all historical miniseries will be made in the same innovative fashion as The Kennedys: by turning each line from their subjects’ Wikipedia entries into dialogue. Until then, we’ll have to make do with this US import, designed to educate recent arrivals from outer space about that much-discussed 20th Century clan. I have already obtained an exclusive script extract from the next episode, and it’s a real cracker:“Can you believe it? The Russians are going to put missile bases on Cuba.”
“Wow. That sounds like a crisis, Jack.”
“Yes, but I won’t let them do it. And I’m also going to start sending US troops to Vietnam to stop the spread of Communism there. But I’m sure the situation won’t escalate.”
“Good stuff. Well, while we’re here, Jack, have you thought of putting a man on the moon? Why don’t you think about it after you give that speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Oh, and I know everyone sees you as the epitome of the modern male after you beat Nixon with his five o’clock shadow in the first ever televised debate, but you’ve got to stop sleeping with Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, I’ll see you in Dallas for that motorcade drive-through thingy.”4
TRICKY DICKIE