Great news for Telly Addicts

I’m extremely happy to report that Andrew Collins, tv reviewer royalty and inspiration for this very blog is back in business.
Andrew had the long running weekly review round-up at The Guardian until April this year. I loved his video blog stylings, his sharp commentary and his infections optimism for the medium where others delight in telling us that watching tv is a waste of our precious time.
He’s a charming chap and always a treat when he irregularly turns up on telly. In an act of benevolent generosity late last year he described part of this actual blog as “great” which was even more exciting than Abs from 5ive enjoying my review of his remarkable farming documentary. I should probably incorporate Andrew’s quote in my tag line – “As endorsed by a proper telly critic”.
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'Robot Wars' – On the Box

It’s finally here! And it’s safe to say guest blogger Jontosaurus was pretty darn excited about it!
It only took twelve years, but it arrived in blistering fashion. Although I was somewhat disappointed that the show was devoid of its once amazing theme tune. Yes, Robot Wars returned to our screens, with the first frantic and destructive episode proving that the new boys can do it alongside the old ones.
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'Dicte: Crime Reporter' – On the Box

Another slice of Danish pastry from Walter Presents project on Channel 4. Strong female lead – check. Horrific crimes – check. Beautiful Scandinavian interiors that’ll make your house look dingy in comparison – check. You may think you’ve already got the measure of Dicte – Crime Reporter but this one is a bit left-field for Nordic Noir fans and subverts our expectations.
The Guardian suggest this series will be yet more “grey dramas about the exhausted life of a crime-solving woman” but this isn’t the case. Yes, the subject matter is very dark (people trafficking, illegal immigration, selling babies, dead babies, religious fanaticism, illegal organ trafficking – you name it, it’s all awful) but deftly handled with the themes of the crimes echoing through the lives of the lovable main characters. Sure, this show shares some of its make-up with The Killing, but also, surprisingly Sex and the City. And the theme tune is just so peppy and cheerful!
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'Gladiators' – Nostalgia Trip

In wich guest blogger Jontosaurus has something to admit…
Jet was well fit. That is how I’m going to start my article – with a whole-hearted confession that yes, I did find her to be the best of all of the female Gladiators. I was probably too young to really understand what to do with my youthful hormones but I understood that Jet was young, attractive and ever so flexible. That was enough for me.

jet
Jet: the object of many boys youthful hormones!

But I digress- it’s that time again where I delve into the annals of television history with very little protective gear and emerge with another artifact from television’s glorious past. It’s another nostalgia trip and, as you’ve probably worked out for my ever so subtle introduction, it’s the time for Gladiators to be put under the microscope. The show actually earned itself a reboot on Sky in the not too distant past.
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"Mr vs Mrs: Call the Mediator" – On the Box

When your friends fall in love, and they invariably, do it’s ALL they can talk about. In a very real and present danger of you being bored death, but you’re a good friend so you sit and smile and try not to puke when they get on to the topic of nicknames *shudder*. Well shnookums, if friends are getting divorced, however supportive you are by nature, I recommend running screaming for the hills.
This new insight is based on BBC 2 documentary Mr vs Mrs: Call the Mediator which I sat and watched, despite the silly name. It’s a view into the rather secretive work of the National Family Mediation service which has 500 locations across England and Wales and plenty of warring couples to offer up to the tv cameras.
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Shocking TV – Viewpoint

The promise of a shock is an excellent hook. Who can resist? We might not admit it but we’re all interested to see freakish behaviour in others and we’d love to know what goes on behind closed doors. This compulsion is at least half the reason for the success of Big Brother and other supposed ‘reality’ tv shows. As an audience we don’t want to be calmed or soothed or reassured; we want to be shocked! We want to be outraged or astonished or moved in some way. And for quite a lot of people, the darker the better.
This is also why the most outrageous actions are always on the advert. A good recent example is Bear Grylls’ vehicle The Island. The voiceover says “someone is going to die” and a contestant falls of a rocky cliff! OMG! What happened? Did he die? Tune in to find out! Well no, of course he didn’t die and he didn’t suffer any major injuries either (despite the consensus that he was an awful person and probably deserved getting bashed up a bit). Do you think even in 2016 they would have been allowed to broadcast an accidental death on a reality show? No. Obviously not. But in that moment, in that 30 second advert, we are swept up in the supposed drama and we HAVE to know what happens!
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'Outlander' – On the Box

Outlander has been winning fans on Amazon since March 2015, but it’s all new to me, so allow me a recap. This is a historical romance with sci-fi time travel elements based on novels by Diana Gabaldon and set in the highlands of Scotland in 1743. Safe to say this is absolutely not my usual fare. I tend to run a mile at the word ‘romance’ but I’d heard great things about this show, and props to them; they’re clearly not afraid to chart their own course. Mr H reminds me frequently that I’d do a better job of blogging about telly if I nudge myself out of my comfort zone more often. So I don my silky negligee, pink fluffy kitten-heel slippers – which I understand is the uniform for all women who love romance – and armed only with a padded box of soft-center chocolates (the customary accessory) here I go.
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"Walking with Dinosaurs" – Nostalgia Trip

Guest blogger Jontosaurus takes us for a walk through his favourite prehistoric wildlife show…
The one problem I had with Jurassic Park and the army of sequels it spawned was simply the factual inaccuracy of it all. Sure, it is decent cinematic value for money to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex lay the smack-down on a car, especially when that car contains two screaming children- who, you know, would really have improved their chances of survival if they weren’t making all of that damn noise and drawing attention to themselves– but my main issue is that you didn’t learn anything. As a child, I was fascinated by dinosaurs, so much so that my idea of a fun day out was not to visit a theme park, but to go to a dinosaur museum or to visit the beach along our infamous ‘Jurassic Coast’ for fossil walks and fossil hunts. Yeah…I was THAT kind of kid. For me, the age of the dinosaurs was a fascinating part of natural history that I felt needed more attention and a whole lot more respect paid to it than an overblown (although undeniably enjoyable) Hollywood blockbuster could muster. In my opinion, we don’t need to plant a dinosaur in the centre of Manhattan in order to make people’s jaws drop- dinosaurs were awesome enough in their own right.
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'The Crystal Maze' – Nostalgia trip

Take a little trip through four perilous zones with guest blogger Mr Jontosaurus
“Start the fans, please!!!!”
Strap yourselves in, boys and girls, because its time for a nostalgia trip. Let me take you back to a time when health and safety was a fallacy, when a person could go on a gameshow and run the risk of potentially breaking every bone in their body. To a time when all of this risk was just seen as good old fashioned fun. If you shattered your skull, it didn’t matter, because look, you’ve won a microwave and your head was kind of a weird shape to begin with, anyway. I talk, of course, about The Crystal Maze.
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'Inside Porton Down' – On the Box

Well that was a deeply disturbing hour of television.
BBC’s amiable Rent-a-Doc Michael Mosley was given unprecedented access to the UK’s most secret and controversial weapons facility. Porton Down in Wiltshire was established in WWI as a response to the gas attacks the Germans launched in the trenches. Scientists based there had to work very quickly to develop gas masks for the troops and began testing ways to launch similar gas attacks against the Germans. Because the best defence is a good offence, and a cataclysmic scaling up of hostilities always ends well.
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