In accordance with my last post, I’m going to chunder out a mass review of all the tv I watched over the exam period. I kept a list and everything. Also in accordance with the last post, the generally confused and subjective tone.

The general formula of TV is formula. Do it once, well. Well, do it eight more times at increasing trajectories.
It’s gotten to the stage that I prefer the relentlessness of the shallow, brilliantly formulated Masterchef than engaging in new hyped shows. I know the judges are a bit odd, I like cooking and getting tips. I want people to laugh at while I live my life out in a studio space. The morbid enthusiasm of each contestant firmly believes that there life is about to be changed by series 94 of Masterchef is heartening and depressing. It has a similar real-life drama / rhythm to football except Masterchef is condensed and strained to create a beautiful reduction of human experience. As the game unfolds before your eyes you tell when someone is over committing or performing like a fine dining racehorse. The strange part of the whole experience is that we cannot actually taste what these horses produce, we have to live vicariously through a strange duo who I’m sure we’d not trust in any other task in life. The glossy images of food are served up at meal times and shame us while we eat the gruel we’re not seasoning properly. Great! It has gotten to the stage that I know the schedule of episodes, the tasks, even the editing of shots. (Spoiler / Conspiracy theory alert – The first person to be shown before before contestants are ejected is the person who will be ejected.)  All this in half an hour. 8/10 (moving to 10/10 towards the end of the series).

However, Masterchef can’t last forever. Thankfully there is Masterchef: The Professionals. And Celebrity Masterchef for the dark times… but what about the moments when the Masterchef is over? And the football isn’t on?! Don’t worry there is more TV!
Perhaps a dose of the Caribbean will ward off the Mastechefless sadness you feel?
Thankfully the BBC has created the murder mystery equivalent of Masterchef, a tasteless, formulaic, murder drama which runs ad infinitum.
Introducing Death in Paradise.
Now in its eighth series, this seemingly innocuous murder mystery series serves up a fresh plot each episode. Set on the fantasy island of Saint Marie, the local police force are tasked with a weekly murder to solve. While you might accuse the show of being a sweet gig for erstwhile failed British actors, you’d be wrong. It is much more sinister than that, and it stars British and Irish actors. The foppish, culturally maladjusted, Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Ardal O’hanlon (delete as appropriate) play the Inspector of Saint Marie police force who is tasked with solving the infinite murders. The fictitious French dependency, relies – for some reason – on the British Police force.
As the treadmill of lesser-spotted failed actors offers up corpse after corpse, you will probably start to wonder what the fuck is going on? How is it that the BBC can produce this? Does the license payer know? Can something be done?!
Aside from the re-hashed stories and shit actors being paid to have a nice holiday (it is filmed in the Caribbean), how can the BBC get away with something as overtly tasteless?
The white Inspector is backed up by a pretty Black french sergeant Josephine Jobert / Sara Martins (delete as appropriate), meanwhile the two indigenous police officers who work in the police force provide the capers as they struggle to do their jobs or rub noses with the wrong-un’s of the island. (There are frequent jokes about lazy Caribbean people.) The indigenous people pop up as cleaners, petty criminals or bar owners. Their lives exist to serve the islands blood thirsty, neo-colonial overlords. As each party of tourists or expats leaves the island with a friend / love interest / business partner (delete as appropriate) in a body bag, we have to ask what can be done to stop the killing?! The BBC must stop!
I’ve not mentioned the CGI lizard which must cost tens of thousands of pounds to make and doesn’t make sense at all, ever. Or the soundtrack which consists of really good ska and reggae which is chopped up and used as a token gesture at authenticity but often just seems a little racist. Or the time that the writers half-heatedly started to carry a love story from one episode to the next, then stopped inexplicably. This is terrible, terrible, television which leaves me with a tremendous sense of satisfaction, knowing that across the UK, old people are sitting in front of this show, waiting for Brexit. It is ideology at its finest, somewhere out there, the commonwealth is still OK. People are dreaming that there is a place in the world where they can go and kill their friend / love interest / business partner (delete as appropriate) while enjoying the services and amenities of the UK alongside the sandy beaches and indigenous population of the Caribbean. It smacks of being written by someone who has only ever holidayed in France. This is taken from the writers wikipedia  and was probably written by the writer himself-

“In 2008, Thorogood entered the inaugural Red Planet Prize and was a chosen finalist, where he was able to pitch his ‘Copper in the Caribbean’ idea to Tony Jordan.^[5] By 2011, when the show was finally broadcast – making it Robert’s first TV broadcast credit at the age of 39 –Thorogood had become something of a poster boy for ‘never giving up on the dream’.^[6][7]”

It’s like something out of Alan Partridge. 1/10. Or 10/10 if you like this sort of thing.
Anyway before we get bogged down with this dreadful, dreadful ideology, lets move on to more beautiful television!
Sticking with formula – Stranger Things.
I don’t have too much to say here, the style of the series is pretty sweet – the music is good. The adventure ticks along. I do find this style of sci-fi a little hard to care about and it is even less compelling when season to season the alien thing gets bigger and more menacing rather than evolving or the gang come up against a new challenge – though they do this by increasing the role played by the shady government forces. That said, I don’t think I’ll take it any further. 7/10

I watched the third season of Fargo. It was a 5/10.
For Scottish people, Euan Mcgregor is a pain in the arse.

Next up – The Detectorists
This is the brain child of Mackenzie Crook and it is wonderful. Again, the formula of increased scale and same story arc predictable, but the writing more than makes up for it. It’s darkly funny and soft and gentle all at the same time. There are probably some criticisms but I’ll not listen to them, because I like it. So there. 10/10

I’ve been re-watching Peep Show.
10/10/10
It is so insanely good it should have a Norwegian bunker dedicated to it.

Black Mirror – 8/10
Not enough formula. Kidding.
Always reliable, often funny and disturbing. Not every story is as good as the next but overall its unmissable. Unless you want to be a social outcast.

I re-watched Band of Brothers with Sra Hummels who hadn’t seen it.
10/10
Really gets you into killing fettle.
Also, changed TV for us forever, now look at it – it’s great!
There is maybe something weird about having actual humans recreate war scenes which are being re-told by the actual war veterans. But war is beautiful so it’s fine.

Also, Twin Peaks was good. Though I watched it ages ago. 10/10

Anyway, I think that’s all the TV I done gone watched. I’ll be back to to tell of the films and podcasts. Then maybe we’ll get round to an interview or two.

Watch your TV now!
MrHummels.
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