douglashaddow:

Black Mirror episode 2.

Charlie Brooker, putting out the best Ballardian television program since Ballard was programming television.

This episode was like a cross between Dollhouse, The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions, X Factor and playing on the Wii, still somehow managing to be less bizarre than the first one. Co-written by Brooker’s wifey, ex-Xtra Factor host Konnie Huq, its slant on our desire for constant distraction and obsession with building people up to knock them down is perhaps less surprising considering Huq’s less than ceremonious axing from her first stab at said show. Described as “Cowell meets Orwell”, 15 Million Merits was a little predictable but visually very well done and had pretty great performances from Daniel Kaluuya off of Skins and Jessica Brown Findlay off of Downton Abbey. Rupert Everett overdoes it a bit in his Cowellesque role but that’s neither here nor there.

The third episode (airing Sunday) comes from Peep Show’s Jesse Armstrong and imagines what life would be like if you could Sky+ (TiVo) your life. Black Mirror is a bit of a heady mix of horror, comedy and sci-fi and has freaked me out like nothing else in recent memory. A lot of the themes are pretty obvious and delivered quite crudely in typical Brooker style but they’re relevant and I’d much rather watch a decent TV programme than read another stupid article about the digital age. Do recommend, you must watch it.

Also, can I just point out how bloody brilliant Channel 4 is? They’ve knocked out this, Top Boy (was going to do a post on this but forgot. Watch it!) and This Is England ‘88 started last night. That’s the three best mini-series I’ve seen for ages and they were on in the last couple of months. Bravo, Channel 4!

Something that’s been happening now for a while over here is 10 O’Clock Live.

We don’t really have that current-news late-night chat-show type thing. I mean there’s Alan Carr Chatty Man which is mostly wank until they drink the death pints (I was going to link to that but here’s some Cheryl Cole that I found in the process instead. <3 u Chez). Jonathan Ross had a great show on the BBC on Friday nights - have I watched his new one? Is it out yet? Obviously not as memorable if so. So Graham Norton was my absolute fav on a Friday night back in the early naughts and there’s Paul O’Grady etc. - but no, we don’t have Stewart and Colbert or even Coco or Letterman or Fallon but we’ve got camp blokes having a laugh with superstars every so often! (No offence, Jonathan Ross, I’m sure you’d much rather be mentioned alongside Parkie and Trevor McDonald. No, wait, you probably don’t mind.)

Anyway, 10 O’Clock Live is the worst name possible for this show because its typical viewer probably associates with the News At Ten (hi Trev) or, way more importantly, The 11 O’Clock Show (Wiki: ”The programme is noted for launching the careers of Ricky Gervais, Sacha Baron Cohen and Charlie Brooker. Comedy writer/performers who also wrote on the show include David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Rhys Thomas, Tony Way and James Bachman”).

The latter association actually isn’t a million miles off as the core four hosts of this new late night topical show are David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr. People like Peep Show so I’ll let my annoyance for Mitchell slide. Actually I like Peep Show and I also like Charlie Brooker, he is a smart dude and he’s funny in a dead English way, like he tells jokes that are funny but you don’t laugh because you are also English. Jimmy Carr is a famous stand-up in the UK, absolute deadpan and dry, dry, dry. He quite recently hosted a horrible gameshow where the host was supposed to be mean and absolutely bombed because he was, well, mean. But funny.

Now, Lauren Laverne sort of seems the odd one out here. TO EVERYONE ELSE, NOT ME! Of late, she is a DJ on BBC 6Music which almost got cancelled last year but before that she was on telly like T4 and general stuff I would watch as a young adult. Thinking about women in broadcasting is making me think of the likes of Fearne Cotton (love her radio show and Celeb Juice obvz) who would SUCK at this but Lauren Laverne sort of came to prominence when I was starting to get a bit more into counter-culture or cheekiness or being too clever or whatever being 16 meant for me then. She has a “skewed” view — in other words, she is perfect to present alongside these guys. (I’m annoyed that it’s harder to describe women in this context. She’s a thinking viewer’s presenter without the implied dullness.)

Anyway, I guess I have a few American and international followers who appreciate British comedy and this is a good show to check out, if completely different to the kind of thing “we” usually do over here. I don’t know how popular it is as I can’t get in the habit of watching late-night talkshows but what I have seen of it is promising, on top of having four incredibly talented hosts. It’s just another point of proof that Channel 4 is still developing “cutting edge” (bleurgh) and “relevant” (double bleurgh*) content for smart people.

*I may bleurgh at shitty buzzwords but I can’t think of anything synonymous that’s quite as effective.

My fav bit so far is “Charlie Brooker defends Rebecca Black” - wait til the end for proper lulz.