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chris_escritt
Reviews
Crimewatch UK (1984)
A national institution has lost its way
My 10/10 grade is for Crimewatch between 1984-2006. Recently, the programme seems to have lost sight of the fact that its entire existence is as public service television. Yes, its clear-up rate sits at a most impressive one case in every five shown and also there must be a willingness to embrace new technology but the fine line between innovation and tat is becoming increasingly threatened. A programme like Crimewatch should be about increasing the amount of phone calls that can be taken in a single night or ensuring that there is an accessible website to browse case files and report suspicions. It should not concern itself with cinematic reconstructions, breast beating symphonies and posturing. It seems so... tacky.
Nick Ross, the faintly bullish but ultimately professional presenter, has just been relieved of his duties after twenty-three years. If, as it seems, the decision to remove him was because he is in his sixtieth year then it once again reinforces the notion that factual television is two parts shine and one part factual content. Crimewatch has been instrumental in cracking myriad notorious cases, even those that are thirty years old. We are not talking about purse snatching and phone box flashers either... we are talking about murders, serial rapists and infanticide. For this alone, Crimewatch must be allowed to continue. Yet all I ask, as a long time viewer and criminological student, is that the glitz and almost American production values that have crept into recent editions are allowed to die a dignified death. It just takes a mugshot and a phone call to apprehend a bank robber or paedophile. So why bother with pulse racing car chases and sub standard RADA acting if there is a more simple (and dignified) approach to solving illegal deeds? Nick Ross has gone - there are better presenters but let's hope that he doesn't come to symbolise Crimewatch's decline into ITVesque gimmickry, where the process of solving crime plays second fiddle to photogenic presenters and cinematic reconstructions of a sex attack in Woking. Crimewatch has become as dependable as comfortable pyjamas. The elastic hasn't snapped yet and I don't want to have to thrown them into the bin whilst they still have a shelf life.
Pets (2001)
One of the greatest oddities of UK television
The adjectives that come to mind if I was to sum up this cult masterpiece are as follows... anarchic, deranged, satirical, coarse, irreverent, insane, acerbic... I hope you get the point. 'Pets' is a much missed gem from the equally sorely missed 4Later strand, Channel 4's graveyard slot for the weird and the wonderful. Even though it is only 5 years since this programme was broadcast, I feel it is unlikely that Channel 4 would ever show it now, highlighting the channel's alarming and sudden descent into pretentious mediocrity and lowest common denominator reality television. This is because Pets is one of the most intelligent, if somewhat rudimentary and crude, comedy/satires of the last twenty years. Despite its late night slot in 2001 it reached out to a surprisingly large and loyal audience. If it had had a late night slot in 2006, it would have had its raw power and subversive streak severely diluted, which would have been criminal and a crying shame.
Pets was more than just late night surreal madness for Britain's legion of insomniacs and drug addled students. It had a sense of humour that many inferior prime time comedy acts can only dream of. It mixed genuinely hilarious situations with cheesy 'Naked Gun' like one liners that make you cross with yourself for laughing. Most episodes featured bizarre monologues and mentally unbalanced ways to alleviate boredom. For the immature 13 year old in us all, there were plenty of smutty references to body parts and masturbation to keep us sniggering well beyond double maths. 'Pets' must also be the only programme ever to make characters out of two philosophising tapeworms inside a dog's stomach. It's these little touches which give it not only the expected chaos of late night television but also the genuinely high quality that makes it one of my all time favourite programmes.
It also contains a poltergeist who gets out of answering the meaning of life (which it doesn't know) by steering the philosophical catechisms onto Australian soap operas...
Having said that, my favourite 'Pets' moment is where JP, the featherless, urine drinking Afrikaner parrot, identifies a piece of music as being a 1964 era hit by the Beatles... Then goes on to explain
or at least something that sounds close enough to the Beatles so that you can immediately associate it with them but just far away enough from the genuine article to avoid legal action.
That sums up the irreverent beauty of 'Pets'. Where else has television paid homage to that little appreciated art making up generic, incidental versions of well known standards when publishing rights to use the actual recording have not been secured?
World's Wildest Police Videos (1998)
Is that Lou from 'Neighbours'???
In England, this programme seems to have been the cornerstone of Channel 5's pre sports thread on a Sunday evening since the dawn of time (or at least since Channel 5 were forced to import non-pornographic material in order to avoid another hysterical Daily Mail campaign). In essence, this show is 60 minutes of frantic car chases, inept corner shop robberies and gushing, hagiographical praising of the American police force's abilities to apprehend all these scoundrels and cads. Yet as much as I am in awe (well maybe not so much awe as incredulous disbelief) of all this right winged, jingoistic hokum, the programme's main source of unintentional hilarity stems from its front man, Sheriff John Bunnell - a lithe, silver haired, permatan gnome of a man armed week in week out with bleached teeth, a perpetual sneer and a drooling script of hackneyed clichés. Within about 50 seconds of the programme starting, the viewer is greeted with grainy, poor quality police footage (usually dated from the early 1990s) of a station wagon crashing into a tree sound tracked by squealing sirens, police troopers barking orders and Bunnell's commentary gushing out gems such as: This fleeing cowboy thought that he could outrun his federal pursuers - - - but he hadn't counted on the might of the law.
In Britain, there are a number of more sedate versions of this show... yet none can match the vacant silliness and patriotic bunkum of this enjoyably rubbish American import.