Diary of an up and coming sociopath

I expanded this from a comment on Seb’s livejournal. I did want to make this an entry anyway, but I arrived at his LK first and just started rattling off, and you know what I’m like…

But anyway. Josh, Ian, Al and I gathered in Josh’s room for the incredibly rare experience of actually watching a British TV programme, in the ultra-rare situation that it was also on TV. Allow me to pontificate a bit on this subject, because it’s not like I think British TV is necessarily shite, it’s just that there is virtually nothing that interests me on it. Jonothan Ross, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, HIGNFY and Rory Bremner pretty much sums up everything I’ll watch on normal TV, and I’ve even taking to downloading, well, all of those things at one time or another because it’s slightly more convenient. The problem I have with UK TV is that drama-wise, it’s hard to compete with US networks who have shitloads of money and talent.

There’s no reason the BBC couldn’t make something like Lost, or Desperate Housewives, Battlestar Galactica, or Buffy, it’s just that when they do, it comes out as a low-rent facsimile, because they just don’t have the budget. And that’s before you even take into account the natural glamour inherent in the American. Lost wouldn’t be quite so compelling if they were clearly on a soundstage and all had Mancunian accents, and something like the Battlestar Galactica remake wouldn’t have quite the same gravitas if it were being filmed at Shepperton (that’s a Red Dwarf commentary joke for all you enthusiasts.)

I’m starting to feel like this is a polemic for another day though. I have plenty to say about comedy, animation, and the way niche viewing is catered for by a larger output in sheer terms of numbers, but I have to go to bed soon and I really want to get around to Hyperdrive.

So…

I didn’t think Hyperdrive was that bad. I’ve not found any new british comedy programmes that remotely cater to my sense of humour in literally years. Look Around You comes closest, but I’ve pretty much accepted that in the UK the public likes X, and I like Y, so I rarely expect stuff to split my sides. I’m aware that Hyperdrive isn’t even the best written british sitcom around, but the setting and premise are appealing enough to hold me where similar quality, even better sitcoms don’t.

It’s fair to say I’m horribly biased, and this forgiveness is based entirely on the fact that it’s got Nick Frost in it though. (Man Stroke Woman is exempt from this forgiveness because it is horrendous.) Much like how I watched Enterprise well after it had plainly gone to shit (some time around 25 minutes into the first episode) because it had Scott Bakula in, I can sacrifice my sense of humour if it means getting to watch certain actors.

I thought Jeffers was actually the best character in Hyperdrive. That is, he actually seemed to be a character rather than a joke delivery vector. That silver woman was a waste of space though. I read her imd profile the other day and I think it said that this is her first acting job and that she used to be a model, so I was expecting her to just be hanging around to give the show some cheesecake/fanservice, but no, they didn’t even have that much of a plan for her role…

It’s no Red Dwarf, it isn’t really trying to be, but the comparisons are unavoidable. Especially when they do things like nicking the ‘Dwarf technique of showing there’s an alien around by sticking a filter on the camera and doing half the scenes as “Alien POV.” The CGI on the ships was surprisingly good for the BBC, assuming it was actually CGI. The things that made me laugh most were all about the quintessential lameness of Britain. Which, surprisingly, ties back to what I was just whining about. The fact that they had a bottle bank on board the ship was easily the most inspired joke in there. After years of watching US Sci-Fi, it’s good to see that uk television can give a slightly more realistic vision the future, even though it looks like cardboard and silver paint. Giving the computer a slightly Brummie accent amused me no end, as did the reference to Ealing. You can tell I’m being represented by the BBC, as a Midlander who now lives in Ealing. Good show.

It’ll probably get better, anyway. I remember thinking after the first episode that I didn’t find My Name is Earl all that funny, but a few episodes in it had improved substantially. There’s still hope that they’ll get some decent episodes out of Hyperdrive yet, though, ask me again in a week or two…