On telly this week

[Richmond Clements]

Is everyone watching Dr Alice Roberts anthropologising on BBC2? She's half Lara Croft/half Richard Dawkins, and she's on every night this week.

Ohhhh yes...

[TordelBack]

Is everyone watching Dr Alice Roberts anthropologising on BBC2? She's half Lara Croft/half Richard Dawkins, and she's on every night this week.

My bizarre dislike for Alice Roberts (she is in every way my ideal of womanhood, so I don't understand it myself...) didn't get in the way of my thoroughly enjoying that first programme, Ice Age wang and all.  I was a bit shocked by the absence of a single archaeologist in the studio, but it's good to see Alice strutting her medical stuff and being genuinely knowledgeable, rather than the faux-surprised wide-eyed-ignorance thing she often does on her archaeological rambles.  The live format is sometimes a bit frustrating, but it definitely adds energy. 

How nobody corpsed while they puzzled out what repetitive activity could possibly lead to arm muscle asymmetry in males is beyond me.

Looking forward to Homo Erectus tonight.*


*As the wife is wont to say.**


**In my dreams.

[Frank]

Arf! Dr Roberts returns to BBC2 in one minute.

[Link Prime]

Derren Brown: Apocalypse looks like good fun in a few mins...

[COMMANDO FORCES]

You can't beat a bit of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL

[Frank]

Derren Brown: Apocalypse looks like good fun in a few mins...

The first time he did one of these, when he convinced the guy he was inside a zombie arcade game, I thought it was great but really out of character with his other material. He seems to be developing the sadistic side of what he does and presenting it as a cathartic opportunity for personal growth. Entertaining, though.

[Goaty]

Well glad I am Deaf, so can't be hypnosis! 

[Dandontdare]

Conrad Black on HIGNFY trumps that. The brassest of necks.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

That zombie one was brilliant. Just imagine if the bloke went all Rambo and kicked the shit out of everyone 

[Frank]

It would be like your Colin MacNeil commission page. The last fifteen minutes of Derren Broon were fucking intense, eh? Under similar circumstances, I feel I would have shat myself.

[Dandontdare]

watched the last half hour - they must have chosen a particularly gullible subject, cos the acting from the girl and the paramedic was awful.

[Link Prime]

Little girls acting could have been better alright, but an enjoyable hour of TV nonetheless.
Looking forward to next Fri.

[Frank]

watched the last half hour - they must have chosen a particularly gullible subject, cos the acting from the girl and the paramedic was awful.

I prefer his explanations of how he sets up his pranks to the execution of things like this. In the first series, Brown wanted to see if he could influence the creative process of two ad men who were going to pitch him an idea for a pet taxidermy business. The way he controlled their environment: diverting their cab past London Zoo to fix the image of the (pearly) gates in their collective unconscious, stenciling wing motifs on walls of buildings, having heaven-themed muzak in the elevator - dozens of imperceptible primers, all just to make sure they produced the logo he had predicted.

It was truly incredible and very thought provoking. I wonder what he could do by stage managing Dave and George's journey into work each morning?

[Steve Green]

They glossed over a couple of things there in the Derren Brown thing.

Would the phone hack thing have worked over 3G as well as wi-fi? Did they do anything with the people at work? Wonder if they accounted for find my phone functionality?

Hard to believe that the scottish ambulance driver would have called the infected sons-of-bitches rather than c**ts, or there wouldn't have been more swearing in general from the main guy.

[Dandontdare]

Here's one for Small Blue Thing - "Horror Europa" with Mark Gatiss, Tue 9pm BBC4 - a follow up to his history of horror, this time focussing on euro-gore, including an interview with Dario Argento