There are a few shows that the BBC makes which I have always found curiously compelling, even though, on the surface, they have very little to recommend them. These are the shows that I will watch when there’s nothing else on, or when I have to do the ironing, or when I can’t quite be bothered to get up from the sofa and do something more productive. In planning this post, I realised that it’s very difficult to say why I like them so much. But this would be a pretty crappy entry if I just wrote ‘I like these shows, I don’t know why.’ So I’m going to have a go at explaining my curious affection for some apparently boring and rubbish TV. Bear with me.
Doctors
Premise: A soap set in the fictional Mill Health Centre.
Oh, Doctors, you are so brilliantly, genius-ly rubbish. This show only airs in the daytime during the week, when I am supposed to be at work, but if I am ever working from home and looking for distractions I am always delighted to stumble across it. Oh, the wobbly scenery, oh the melodrama, oh the piss-poor acting! Infidelity is rife, everybody’s keeping salacious secrets, there are alcoholics and porn addicts and doctors accidentally sleeping with prostitutes and nobody ever really seems to give a crap about any of the (rarely seen) patients. It is fabulous stuff, and quite the best accompaniment to ironing that I know.
Antiques Roadshow
Premise: The show travels around the country (hence the name) and wherever it stops people bring random dusty relics that they found in their attics to be examined by experts. Every once in a while, a priceless antique is discovered, but this doesn’t happen very often.
I love The Antiques Roadshow. It reminds me of early Sunday evenings in winter, sitting in the living room with my Dad, eating our dinner on our knees. Dad always completely missed the point by saying things like ‘That table’s get a scratch in it. You could get a much nicer one at Ikea.’ Nothing bad ever happens, there is rarely any excitement, almost all of the people are in their fifties and wearing sensible shoes, and the same thing happens over and over again. It goes like this: visitor shows dusty relic to expert; expert talks about relic and makes admiring noises; visitor tells amazed expert that their dad bought relic in a junk shop for three pence back in 1939; expert tells visitor relic is now worth at least £150; visitor gasps politely. And then they move onto someone else and the same thing happens all over again. This is the ultimate in comfort telly.
Ready Steady Cook
Premise: Two contestants bring a bag of ingredients bought for £7.50 or less, and work with a celebrity chef to create a gourmet meal in twenty minutes, using only the ingredients they brought plus some culinary basics like milk, herbs, and olive oil. The audience votes for the winner.
I have always loved shows in which other people work frantically while I sit slumped on the sofa doing nothing. It’s very soothing. Ready Steady Cook is perfect for this because it’s Speed Cooking! And there are always lots of pans involved and frantic chopping and things accidentally catching on fire and the stupid contestants keep messing things up for the chefs, who can’t swear because it’s daytime television. And then at the end of it all they’ve miraculously produced some delicious gourmet three-course meal which would probably take me a whole day. Meanwhile all I’ve done is further embed my arse-print in the sofa. Like I said, it’s oddly soothing.
So, what are your comfort television picks, US or UK? And can you put your finger on why you like them?
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January 31st, 2008 at 10:59 am
Oh, the Antiques Roadshow! I haven’t seen it in ages. My favourite ones are when some person who fancies themselves a collector comes in with a repulsive vase or something, and reveals they paid a grand for it because they thought it would be worth ten times that much, and the poor expert has to struggle to tell them it’s only worth a tenner. And lest that description made me sound too evil, I also like it when there’s an old granny who turns out to have something worth tens of thousands of pounds, too.
Comfort television: Tom and I are both big fans of Masterchef. Always the same: the same mid-90s hard house as incidental music, the same voice overs, and the utterly predictable format: six people start, one or two are great, one or two are awful, the two judges argue who of the remaining two should go through; then they have the bit in the professional kitchen, where one of them is great, one of them is initially nervous but then finds their stride and starts “turning out perfectly presented dishes” (seriously, even the wording is the same from day to day), and one of them cocks up. OH IT IS SO GOOD.
I also love property programmes.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Oh, property shows. Specifically, Location, Location, Location and Property Ladder. I can never understand why people don’t listen to the presenters.
I have found a lifelong nemesis in a woman who was on Property Ladder, who would not take Sarah Beeny’s advice and ended up screwing up what should have been a money-making renovation in Islington royally. She WOULD NOT LISTEN and they then couldn’t shift the flat and had to sell their own home. I know, terribly sad, but all her own fault. She should have listened to Sarah. And she should not have been called Marigold.
I know exactly where the flat is, and I have a diabolical urge to go and knock on the door, point and laugh, then walk away.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Penny I am pretty sure that they select the people for Property Ladder who will be wilful and stupid and do it all wrong, because that makes good telly. A friend of mine who actually is in property development and has successfully renovated and sold a few flats in London applied to be on the show and didn’t get through the first round of selection. They must have thought he was too good at it and would probably listen to all of Sarah Beeny’s advice and make a killing, and where’s the fun in that?
January 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Jess, Masterchef - I am addicted, I get my hard disk think to record it and am sad if it forgets to. I think it was a tad less formulaic last year and the intro does wind me up now “Cooking doesn’t get tougher than this”, well erm I’m sure cooking on a battle field or in the wilderness is a smidge harder than in a well stocked kitchen so…and another thing is the weird way Greg Wallace eats, seriously check it out! Odd.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Penny, one of my favourites is Relocation Relocation - they had a pair of idiots on last night, who had decided that they wanted to move from Newcastle to near Felixtowe, where they had never been, on the basis of a job that the husband hadn’t actually got yet, and also buy a holiday house in Languedoc, where they had also never been. Their expectations were completely unrealistic, they changed their minds on a whim, they ostensibly wanted a ready-to-move-into family house but the husband secretly wanted something to develop - it was great fun watching Kirstie and Phil getting very politely enraged with them. In the end both of their attempted purchases fell through - hahahaha! - which turned out to be a good thing, when the husband got a job in Oxford intead. Fools!
Plattie, I think you’re right about them wanting fools on Property Ladder. It might also be the same with Grand Designs (though to a lesser extent) - last night’s project was by an architect, and while it was interesting, it wasn’t nearly as good as watching the people who are all “yes, I know we’re in the middle of a build but I’ve changed my mind and would like to orient the house towards the south, and OH MY GOD WHERE IS THAT WATER SEEPING IN FROM?” Hmmm, I am starting to think that schadenfreude is an enormous part of my enjoyment of these shows.
Rhimi, what a brilliant idea - I would LOVE to see some of the Masterchef contenders cooking on a battlefield. WHich one’s Greg Wallace, the bald one or the Aussie? The bald one cracks me up, when he’s like “I’m getting sea bass, I’m getting pesto and now WHOMP in comes the lemon!”
January 31st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I think we should send that one in. He’s the bald one, who always wants to snog the puddings. He does make me laugh because he’s either in ecstasies or loathes it all and he does do those great descriptions. Joh Torrode’s highest praise is, “I could eat it all”, which seems faint praise when compared to Greg’s desire to get up close and personal with the food.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
Oh yes, he is such a sucker for desserts! My boyfriend and I watch it so much that, even though neither of us are amazing cooks, I feel like we could do quite well by taking a tactical approach:
1. NEVER make a pasta in the invention test, because no matter how good it is, one or both of the judges will say “…but it’s just a bowl of pasta.”
2. Simplicity is key. Never put any more than three visible ingredients on a plate. I always mock the fools who are like “I have cooked everything! Here, see how great I am!” because they are GOING DOWN.
3. In the third stage of the heats, always do a main and a dessert rather than a starter and a main, because Greg Thingy is such a sucker for them; your starter could be a work of genius, but if you just shove a bog-standard chocolate mousse with raspberries in front of Greg, he’ll trough it down and let you through.
I totally think the 18-year-old girl is going to win it this year.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Count me in on the property shows - I too really enjoy watching people make fools of themselves on national telly by ignoring the experts or doing something utterly lunatic.
I especially like it when people come back to Sarah Beeny afterwards and say, really really quietly, “oops, yes. We should have listened to you.” That’s always funny.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 am
I do too, she has a slight mad glint in the eye but John T is very very excited about her.
I agree with you on the plan, re 3 anything that looks like it involved chocolate/lard at some stage goes down very wel with Greg. Scallops as a starter seem to be key to getting through this season and no one has said “OMG scallops overload, use your imaginations people”, I mean scallops are lovely but about 6 people who’ve gotten through have used them.