Did You See That

Deano Wickes got out of prison last night on Eastenders, and he seemed to have a right cob on. Ok, so he’s been in prison, he’s had “everything” done to him in there, his Dad has died and his sister has gone off travelling around the world, so he’s entitled to be a bit moody but this was a completely different Deano. It wasn’t that long ago he was out for Kevin’s funeral and he didn’t seem quite as messed up as last night, so he either had a very bad last month inside, or Eastenders writers were indulging in their favourite trick of completely changing a character’s personality - remember when Minty was an evil landlord offering to take sex as payment from Janine?

So as I was saying, Deano wasn’t best pleased. He went rount to Shirley’s and had her pay for a prostitute, sorry, “escort”. Then he went over to the Vic and headbutted Sean Slater (hang on, wasn’t Sean the victim of Deano’s crime - how’s that for victim support?) and then gave Shirley a bit of a roughing up before making his way into the night and out of the Square for good.

I’d have to say, observations about his personality transplant aside, Matt Di Angelo did a good job acting the part (finally) and was more believable as a hard-nut than Sean who just seems a bit gormless these days.  No wonder Sean is leaving too - they’ll have him clowning around with Minty and Garry if he stays too much longer.

I had completely forgotten about this classy contemporary drama but I was browsing Amazon and saw it was available on DVD, so ordered it to remind myself how good it was. Set in Manchester, it’s a brilliantly non linear drama around a love triangle. Fi is with Jase, but has chemistry with his best friend Nathan (the story’s narrator). Nathan is in love with Fi. Jase love’s Fi, but also enjoying loving men. Nathan knows about this, but being Jase’s best friend, can’t tell Fi, even though he loves and could get her himself.

Really a lot of fun and one of the better pieces of original programming from BBC Three. Check it out if you haven’t seen it.

It was the series finale of Spooks tonight, and as usual they didn’t fail to deliver with a gripping conclusion.  We learned in this episode that Zaf was indeed dead. He was kidnapped earlier in the series and I had hoped he would turn up alive, but his disfigured remains were dumped at the British consulate in Karachi, identifiable only by dental records. His death was at the hands of a group who were kidnapping intelligence officers to extract information under torture. Their next targets were Jo and Adam, aided and abetted by CIA’s London liaison officer, Bob Hogan who had gone “freelance”. The final scenes saw a race against time as Harry and the others raced to the scene whilst Jo pleaded with Adam to kill her to spare her a fate of torture, rape and murder.

Did he kill her before special forces broke into the building? To be honest, it looked like he had but we won’t know til the next series. The refreshing thing about Spooks has always been its ability to dispense with major characters as the story dictates. In other programmes, the viewer always has the feeling that whatever the tension, the “hero” will live to fight another day. Spooks is nothing like as predictable.

Let ’s hope it’s back on our screens soon…

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Jonathan Ross had the pleasure of being joined by Jerry Seinfeld on his Friday night chat show. It was simply brilliant: a tour de force from the hilarious Mr Seinfeld.

The BBC has selected  some clips - not the best - for its official YouTube channel. Hopefully someone will post a full copy soon.

Did you see that? Well the good news is that even if you didn’t see that, you most likely still can thanks to the TV catch up services now offered by the main terresterial broadcasters.

BBC - The BBC has iPlayer, which lets you download selected show from the last week and keep them for a further week. The software and various logins are clunky and it only works on XP, but once you start using it and find your feet, it’s really useful.

ITV - ITV.com has an integrated Flash based video player which lets you watch live TV or selected shows from the ITV archives.

Channel 4 - Channel 4 has launched 40D, which is similar to iPlayer except you get 30 days to download programs and you can also pay for movies and classic show downloads.

Casino Royale star Daniel Craig appeared on the Jonathan Ross chat show last nite (BBC1). Craig has revitalised the Bond franchise and Jonathan Ross is movie buff, and presenter of BBC’s “Film” programme, so it should have been a fascinating conversation - except it would have been if Daniel Craig had anything to say… at all. What a let down - the guy was virtually monosyllabic.

Thanks to Jonathan Ross, there’s always a few funny moments though. On talking abot green screen acting, Craig said it was hard to talk to an empty space. “Are you talking about me?” asked Jonathan… “at least I’m keeping my end of the conversation up!”

I wonder if he’s just painfully shy, or maybe objected to the ribbing he got (Ross labelled his face “craggy”) or didn’t care for being the object of Russell Brand’s desires. It’s a shame because he’s clearly a great actor… so maybe he should have tried to act like an entertaining chat show guest?

This was a fascinating drama for a Sunday night in front of the box. Award winning writer and director Stephen Poliakoff brought together a fantastic cast including the incredible Michael Gambon and the impossibly handsome Rupert Penry Jones. The story from seen through the eyes of Joe - a simple, naive boy recruited to man the door of a massive, unused Mayfair house.

Its billionaire owner, Elliot Graham, played by Michael Gambon, had inherited the house and his wealth from his father, but was paralysed by not knowing how his father had made his money. Richard (Rupert Penry Jones) - a charming government minister - ingratiates himself with Joe and begins to use the luxurious house to conduct an affair. The visits from Richard and his mistress, played by the beautiful Kelly Reilly, become the highlights of Joe’s time at the house and he increasingly looks forward to their visits, but is confused when Richard brings another mistress.

Honestly, it wasn’t entirely clear what the point of the story was, but it almost didn’t need a point. The characters themselves made compelling viewing without the need of any over bearing narrative. One theme was certainly loneliness. The loneliness for Joe in looking after an empty house was evident. Elliot Graham’s loneliness came from being a reclusive figure, awkward around others and with the nagging doubts he had about all the origins of his wealth.

Elliot eventually discovers the source of the riches left to him, and Joe plays an important part in the dramatic conclusion. I definitely enjoyed this and am looking forward to seeing the sister production, Capturing Mary, starring Maggie Smith and also centering around the eerie Mayfair house where Joe works.

Another knockout performance from Michael Buble, this time performing “It Had Better Be Tonight”, from his recently released album, Call Me Irresponsible. Did you notice the alteration he made to the song’s lyrics?

He should have sung:

For this poor Americano
Who knows little of your speech
Be a nice Italiano
And start to teach

But instead, it was:

For this poor Canadiano
Who knows little of your speech
Be a nice Americano
And start to teach

Cute touch! The album is amazing by the way - definitely one I recommend.

Eugh. Westlife. I didn’t mind them once upon a time, but what’s all this about: releasing a cover version of Michael Buble’s “Home”, which is only a couple of years old and their version is no different certainly no better. By all means stick some cover songs on your album as filler, but to release it as the first single of a new album is a bit pathetic. Have they really got so little to contribute musically that this is what they come up with?

Anyways, check them out singing it on Strictly Come Dancing recently. Notice how very little Nicky and Kian do, but how much effort they put into doing it. It’s actually quite funny.

I missed The Tudors on Friday night, and it thought it looked quite good so made a mental note to download it from BBC iPlayer. So I had a look on the BBC iPlayer website for it and what do I find? Nothing. The Tudors is not available to download through BBC iPlayer.

So rather than offer quality drama, that presumably we licence fee payers helped pay for, I did instead have available such delights as Dale Winton’s In It To Win It and some dross with Anthea Turner.

The BBC spent a long time developing and testing iPlayer but what’s the point of it if only selected programs are available. Pop over to ITV.com instead and never mind all the iPlayer pollava - just click and watch live TV from the ITV network, as well as recent and classic archives. Perfect.