From the opening credit sequence, sung by the two female leads I think (Doon MacKichan, incidentally, is so far nowhere to be seen) this first episode of new Scottish sit-com "Feel the Force" was awful in every way. The two leads have the comic subtly and timing of a fatal school bus crash - and the script is full of bland, grey non-jokes performed with mugging repetitiveness (and two vaguely funny ones in the whole half hour; although the Chinese Madonna gag was driven into the ground and then stamped on until dead). There's no plot, or characters, and the only thing of real interest in the whole show was: HOW DOES AN ORDINARY POLICE OFFICER MANAGE TO AFFORD A FLAT IN EDINBURGH NEW TOWN? Really, this is bad. Scotland, hang our comic heads in shame. With England constantly churning out fine sit-coms and comics, BBC Wales riding high on the back of Russell T Davis, and the Irish geniuses of Linehan and Matthew still casting a long shadow over TV comedy in general - why is Scotland still trying to rewrite old "Naked Video" scripts? With a few exceptions (some, but by no means all, of the work of the Scotch & Wry and Chewing the Fat mafias) we never seem to be able to make people laugh. Rikki Fulton relied upon old Two Ronnies scripts, and Scotland's only true comic genius, Armando Iannucci, left after 18 months of making cups of tea for other people as a trainee at Radio Scotland.
Since the year 2000 we've had 'Caledonian MacBrains', 'The Karen Dunbar Show', 'Overnite Express', 'Meet the Magoons', 'Snoddy' (another police sit-com) and about eighteen thousand episodes of 'Still Game' (or 'Still Going, Oh Christ, When Will We Stop?' as it will soon be called). None of these have ever shook the world like Ricky Gervaise, Simon Pegg, or even Peter Kay (he's relatively crap now, but still better than Ford Kiernan - can't we sent a raiding party down to Bolton and steal him as a true Scot?) One day, we should have a sit-com to rank alongside 'Fawlty Towers' or 'Hancock'. And if you think that's unlikely, or we'll only ever appeal to people within 30 miles of the Clyde - ask yourself ... why?
Since the year 2000 we've had 'Caledonian MacBrains', 'The Karen Dunbar Show', 'Overnite Express', 'Meet the Magoons', 'Snoddy' (another police sit-com) and about eighteen thousand episodes of 'Still Game' (or 'Still Going, Oh Christ, When Will We Stop?' as it will soon be called). None of these have ever shook the world like Ricky Gervaise, Simon Pegg, or even Peter Kay (he's relatively crap now, but still better than Ford Kiernan - can't we sent a raiding party down to Bolton and steal him as a true Scot?) One day, we should have a sit-com to rank alongside 'Fawlty Towers' or 'Hancock'. And if you think that's unlikely, or we'll only ever appeal to people within 30 miles of the Clyde - ask yourself ... why?