Who *does* watch TV?

"'The Simpsons' streaming via antenna into the TV in my Somerville pad brings some surreal juxtapositions....new answerz"

Me! I watch too much TV. Did anyone see BBC Breakfast this morning? As Jeremy 'Live From Ground Zero' Bowen is away making a pompous ass of himself in the middle east, the rest of the team could "get down wiv ver kidz" for once, filming at the Rough Trade Shop in Notting Hill and blatantly advertising the new single from Ver Streets! (part of a feature on why downloading is NOT killing music ... in UK anyway, where CD sales are on the increase).

I watch TV! And I can barely get channel 5! My reception is rubbidge and has gone even stranger since I hooked up the video. Also I haf the problem that I can WATCH vids on ye video but I can't seem to be able to tune it in so I can actually record anything on it. Waaah! Thank you Lixi for taping Dr Who and the Daleks by the way.

I watch The Simpsons (even the re-runs I've seen hundreds of times) and Futurama and tapes of the Osbournes and The Jim Lehrer News Hour when I wake up in time and whatever else is on whenever I'm really bored and don't feel like renting a flick. I don't have cable and reception is definitely spotty.

I watch Smack Down! That's my favourite show.

Jeremy Bowen has never read a bk/seen a movie in his life, which makes his 'cultural' interviews on Breakfast telly esp. funny. Someone will hit him soon, I think.

I often have the tv on w/ the sound off so that I can listen to music at the same time. Ceefax subtitles are gd, too.

I always watch TV ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS. Well nearly. My favourite nights are when there is non-stop soap from 6 onwards e.g Thursdays: 6:00 Home & Away 6:30 Hollyoaks or Family Affairs 7:00 Emmerdale 7:30 Eastenders 8:00 Brookside (brief hiatus) 9:00 Bad Girls (yeah not a soap but GREAT all the same).

I watch TV, though I don't tend to watch anything that'll challenge me or make me think. I spend too much of my days thinking - I need escapism, and watching Saturday nights on Sky one, or 3 consecutive hours of the Simpsons, or Middlesbrough Vs Everton is just the ticket.

Does that make me a bad person?

There was a programme which I thought would be BRILLIANT last night about an aristocratic lady who took revenge on her CHEATING HUSBAND by cutting up his suits/giving away his posh wines and all sorts of STUFF - top notch I thort this will give me HINTS and TIPS for the future, but after about 5 minutes of detailed revenge it started going into a weak sappy half-arsed feminist slant on her life which was immensely dull. I wished there was some more bonkers AT HOME WITH THE BRAITHWAITES to watch. I wonder if Popular is out on video?!

^ fuckin hell, must stay awake + watch brimstone ^

^ no 1stborn, you can't watch simpsons cuz im watchin EDEN with Lily uuuummmmmmmmm ^

^jez^ bowen has a tache - that bill guy is fuckin kreepy, sian an sophie should lez up

I saw that revenge prog as well. After the first ten minutes I wanted to dismember Rosie Boycott. Grrr.

Wot about the TROOF ABAHT LESBO SEX last night eh? I couldn't watch it, but my gal was unnecessarily fascinated.

I did not watch that due to falling asleep somewhat during Room 101. I did however watch the GODAWFUL 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps please - is that on its second series? It's TERRIBLE and last night was the first time I sat through an entire episode - I admit with a bit of dozing off as well.

the bit when penny smith was reminiscing about being fisted by lorraine kelly was top tv

I think the hell of the 2nd series of 2 Pints of Lager is for now confined to Digital, thank god. I think I fell asleep the same time as you Sarah (ahhhh) watching telly too (ahhh...) though I fell asleep during Inspector Lynley which is most unlike me (though it was v. v. boring despite the rakish good looks of Inspector Lynley mmmm).

Tonight there is a fight between Cutting It - described this morning as BBC's answer to Footballers Wives! - and I Saw You = no doubt terribly smug & punchable 30 something horror but as I head that way myself I need all the help I can get.

i watched dolph lungren in shit woo film for 2 minuten then switched to shootin stars and 2pints - i can remember more details about Sarah's shoe kollextionne than those drossy bllx

BBC's answer to Footballers Wives = missing the point completely - I fear.

Tonights TV looks rub - I'm going to see a Mexican Sex Comedy instead. See my notes on TV on the other rival TV thread for further thoughts on this.

Missing what point exactly Pete?

Probably the good point. The BBC are rubbish at making good trash TV.

Footballers WIves= illusive attractive bimbos with unreachable lifestyle.

Hairdressers=Skanks who have crap hair themselves, overcharge you and don't do what you ask them to, wrinkly fingers and thoroughly reachable lifestyle.

I think that's the point the bBC is missing. But I could be wrong (however Charlies Angels style billboard ad is horrifically poor).

*Sigh* 'the BBC's answer to' does not mean 'exactly the same programme but on the BBC' it means it is fluff & glamour & general daftness. As someone who admits they don't watch much TV you aren't really in a position to judge this innit? Also it was not the Beeb that described it thus but a TV reviewer elsewhere.

kill the reviewer then

No, fair enough though I think the ad campaign is pretty clear that the BBC is trying to market it in that way. And I certainly won't judge it without seeing it (except I already have and its got Amanda Holden in it who is rub). It just strikes me as the kind of drama that the BBC never really does all that well. And I'm not sure what the dramatic tension is in hairdressing - something which seems quite clear in the trailers. If plot is restricted to rival salon owners, one of whom is shagging the others ex, frankly it doesn't look like it has legs.

But it could be GRATE.

now rival antique dealers -- THAT would be funny. they could call it "the rival antique dealers" and get that guy out of it ain't half hot mum (molly sugden) and that old thesp (simon callow).

Yes but you could say 'oh Clocking Off was just about a bunch of people working together in a factory shagging each other behind their partners' backs' but that was good. I'm sure many people wouldn't be able to see where the dramatic tension lies in a factory. It's not necessarily about the setting but the people, innit?

THE BUREAU!!

True, true Emma - but
a) Clocking off was merely an excuse for barely related single dramas revolving around the much larger factory catchment area (more people work in a factory than a salon).
b) Clocking Off was merely a clever ruse to smuggle Play For Today back into the BBC's programming without them noticing it.
c) Cutting It is a serial which will need to balance plot strands which will include the external life of the characters (love life definately) but also with the business rivalries. Whilst there are ideas of dodgy do's and peroxide burns the slaon does not seem to have the same dramatic potential.

But I am reseving my right constantly here to be very, very wrong.

You seem to have missed / be ignoring the point that it's not about WHERE something is set, it's about characters. Anyway, don't you think a hairdressing salon is a business just like any other? Presumably not.

I don't like 'characters'.

Fuck knows why I am debating TV programmes with a) someone who almost never watches TV and b) someone who doesn't even own one.

I wasn't debating Emma, I was just saying I dont like 'characters'. It's why I don't have a TV.

I do watch and have watched enough range of TV to at least have a basis for my argument. And the main basis for my argument actually lies more in that this appears to be the type of TV programme that the BBC does quite badly.

The adverts for Cutting It has the tagline "Rivals at work and in love" - with what I presume to be our two rival salon owners and the man in the middle. The idea that this advert is putting out is that this will be a steamy, contemporary sexual drama (something the BBC has not of late excelled at), and that it will have a considerable amount of plot regarding the business rivalry. Whilst rivalry in any contexts will set up the necessary conflict - the business rivalry that appears to being set up looks particularly false (is the world of hairdressing that dog eat dog).

Programmes are rarely solely about characters - because events and situation will inform and push the characters into conflict and action. I am suggesting that the situation alone does not appear promising. (The situation in Footballers Wives looked promising, and was then improved upon by bonkahs scriptwriting).

Oh, and last word on Clocking Off - even the title suggested that this was about what happened when they are not working. Cutting It suggests the opposite (and is a rubbish play on words too).

I'm glad I watch tv because last night I saw my other half's sister being given the runaround on that terrible "Airline" programme. (Although they didn't show the bit where they suggested to her that unless she signed the tv release forms she wouldn't get a seat on the flight...)

2 Pints of Lager etc. is GRATE! This is the repeat of the 1st series, since 2nd is only currently available on BBC Choice. Which could be funny said in a sarcastic way (mmm... choice.). You are sitcom FULES>

Too much Derrida has addled yore BRANE Thompson - it's absolutely dire! Words cannot express! Come on T - why is it good then?!

i watch pint also but i watch everything

2 pts of larger & a pkt crisps:

1) It makes me laugh. This is a good start, when even Frasier etc. just makes me snicker, chortle, or smile amusedly with a seen-it-all air.

2) It used the phrase 'bum-love' which is just funny.

3) I like the idea that they are trying to do an affectionate portrait of non-middle class young people -- ie they are not students as set out in last week's episode -- and absolutely failing.

4) The characters are quite sweet and cuddley, even when trying to be laddish.

5) I quite fancy the blonde one.

6) They go down the pub the WHOLE TIME as if this was in itself enough of a gimmick to define the sitcom as in some way original, but probably only means it was written by some media-tossbag who has never been in a pub (how quaint) or watched Men Behaving Badly.

I watched the first ep of the new series of 2 pints last night, it was absolute shit, and I laughed a lot. MOst of it is incredibly unfunny, but all of a sudden there's a gem in there.

I recommend Cutting It UNRESERVEDLY. No, I've not seen a preview, but I've been following everything by its writer Debbie Horsfield for many years, and it's all been magnificent, going back to the one drama series based around a factory that was better than Clocking Off, Making Out. Cutting It is bound to be very good, minimum.

did it cut it - i wil watch again - ludicrous AMAnga Holdon acting as a char acting as a char, so bizarre

The Brady Bunch: 'Marcia, sometimes you act really crazy, but you're still the grooviest looking girl in school.'

I watch telly. But where's the remot control?

bad girls, the simpsons, futurama.

hardly watch the box these days, especially seeing as how housemates are downloading every simpsons and south park. i was forced to get rid of it when i realised my lack of self discipline would mean after the programme i had switched on to watch had ended, instead of 'turning off my tv set and going and doing something less boring instead' i swapped channels until settling on the least offensive show.

it was brought home to me when one sunday morning recovering from a particularly vicious evening's substance abuse somewhere in greenwich's halls of residence, we sat through a feature length mcguyver (spelling?!). mcguyver and the lost city i believe it was. anyway when the final credits rolled my dear friend guy said, "you know, the worst thing about that is that is two hours of my life i'm never going to get back."

but of course without it we would never have had the line "motherfucker's like mcguyver, no, motherfucker's *better* than mcguyver!". awesome.

ma-a-a-at-lo-o-o-o-ck!!

wakeup to - hangtime/realwurldseattle[irene-uuuummmm]/futurama wile otharz wrk

i am thee playbwoy ov tha westrn whurld

alext is OTM regarding 2 Pints. I sense the start of something quite good in its awkward toilet humour.

what, no one here watches law and order???

Not anymore; I lost interest in that show right around the time the blonde assistant DA showed up.

CSI?