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Costco at Christmas (2022)
Cheap Rubbish Even By Channel 5's Standards
Channel 5 know their audience very well and clearly commission cleverly to cater for this demographic, which is perfectly understandable.
A fair few of these kinds of documentaries are actually fairly watchable all things considered, who knew supermarket prep kitchens and cruise ship laundry rooms could be so engrossing.
This masterpiece, however, was frankly dross from the start, even for this channel. It looked as if it was filmed on a potato whilst the operator was drunk, with the most patronising, pointless and irritating talking heads to provide light relief in-between.
A must miss all round - do the planet a favour and give your TV a rest!
Christmas Carole (2022)
Suranne Jones is Fantastic
I thought I'd give this a try after seeing the trailer on nearly every Sky ad break throughout December.
It's a well shot, well acted, well-paced little TV mini movie. Suranne Jones is excellent, Rosie Cavaliero is hilarious & the whole show has a modern, funny yet warm feel throughout. Plus it's not too long either.
This seems to be another mixed-genre piece from Sky, it's colourful and funny on the surface, but it doesn't seem to do it justice treating it as a kids' movie as there are a lot of gown-up themes underneath.
Overall, Christmas Carole is a decent watch this Christmas, and a pleasant surprise!
This England (2022)
That friggin' typewriter effect
The scattergun pacing, excessive use of library footage & that friggin' typewriter effect make this hard to watch.
The show feels like a box-ticking exercise; rapidly flipping between each minutiae, each generic & over-dramatic Zoom meeting, introducing what feels like 20 new characters a minute, whilst trying to tell us everything but actually telling us nothing at the same time.
All of this effort to cram in so many supposedly accurate details, and yet Matt Hancock is wearing a rainbow-coloured NHS badge in the first episode!
This show feels as if it doesn't know what it is: a portrait of Boris or a blow-by-blow documentary of the pandemic.
Keeping the focus on him would surely have produced a more watchable, engaging piece of drama.
Flack (2019)
S2 is a completely different show
Series 1 gets so much right, probably 70% quick, dark humour with a decent amount of backstory to keep it grounded. It's shot really well, the outfits and hair work, the dialogue is sharp & funny and the cast overall work really well together. It has a bit of an Ugly Betty meets Devil Wears Prada feel to it, and I'm definitely here for that.
Series 2? Pretty much all of that has been ditched. It's interesting see a little more backstory, but it has switched tone so heavily, it feels like a different show. It's just thoroughly sad, with a feeling of little to no payoff at the end of each episode. The show has been colour graded to look cold, the outfits and styling have lost their sense of fun, and even the decent theme music has been ditched. I'm pretty much just seeing it through out of curiosity rather than enjoyment.
If there is ever a third series, I hope they're able to bring back some of the original appeal and charm of series one.
Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light (2020)
Tastefully Done
To be honest I nearly didn't watch this, and was planning just to hold out until next year, as I didn't think this would be a 'proper' Eurovision show. Whilst clearly it could never replace a contest, I thought this show was really tastefully made, showcased interesting performances and had an overall sincere Eurovision feel to it. The street performance of Molitva was particularly special.
No Good Nick (2019)
Comes alive halfway through Series 2
Series 1, particularly episode 1, was quite a disappointment. It really didn't feel like it gelled well, the dialogue was awkward, and I really didn't warm to Nick. However, I liked some of the characters and the general idea of the show enough to see it through.
The start of Series 2 was fairly similar, for the first few episodes. I think it wasn't until the episode which explained Nick's backstory, with the flashbacks of her working in her Dad's restaurant, that whole show really felt as if it had some substance to it. By this point, the characters had developed well, and the laughs felt more genuine.
Two particular stand out scenes were Jeremy's coming out mishap, and the rats in the restaurant sequence - both were genuinely very funny!
I guess it goes without saying, but MJH really makes this show. Clearly the show has to be judged within its own category (although that itself is hard to define). Sometimes the fun/serious balance didn't work, there were times during Series 1 where I wondered who the hell had come up with some of this stuff. But generally, it had quite a fun, feel good tone to it, and Series 2 was a lot better thought out.
Overall, the latter part of Series 2 had the kind of feel that I'd hoped for at the start of Series 1. It'd be a shame not to develop this show further, I'd kind of miss it if it ended there.