On telly this week

[Recrewt]

Is it just me, or is House of Fools not very good?

No, I didn't think much of it either.  I used to love Vic and Bob when they did Big Night Out and the early Shooting Stars but something has changed and I'm no longer laughing, just thinking wtf?

[Frank]

I don't think it's a coincidence that Reeves and Mortimer's most successful shows (Big Night In and Shooting Stars) are ones where there's a recognisable format - variety and quiz, respectively - giving the viewer a structure to understand the pair's free form nonsense as subverting and parodying. If the underlying structure of House of Fools is a parody of the TV sitcom, it's currently suffering from subsidence. Apparently they realised it wasn't working after a couple of episodes and made some changes.

Hopefully that means going off-script and acknowledging the theatricality of the show more often, because those are the parts I think worked best so far. There are enough great ideas in there to make a fun show, but the format in which they're presented feels a bit lifeless. There are long stretches of Bang Bang! and The Smell which suffer from the same aimless obscurity, and I ended up cherishing parts of them too. I'd like to see them cameo as different characters, like Kinky John, and cracking each other up.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Yes Sauchie I totally agree - also I LOVE KINKY JOHN.

I'd love for them to put their noggins into it and make it work because it has strong potential, glad to hear that it'll change as it goes on as well - I was worrying it'd run a bit thin toward the end of the series.

[Mabs]

Episode 2 of Hidden Kingdoms was another triumph! Really enjoyable stuff and again, the kids were glued to the TV screen.

Lesson of the day: It never pays to steal!  Yes I'm looking at you, Mr. Older Chipmunk! 

[Devons Daddy]

board
keep posting, you the equivalent of radio/tv times for my downloads, if you say its good, I give it watch,
on average you have been HUGLEY correct on the recommendations.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Inside No. 9 Tonight BBC2



Shearsmith & Pemberton are back with a six-part  series of one-off black comedy tales. Should be grand

[Goaty]

Oh that was dark episode tonight on Inside No. 9!

[NapalmKev]

Inside No. 9 Tonight BBC2



Shearsmith & Pemberton are back with a six-part  series of one-off black comedy tales. Should be grand

I watched this last night. Very dark, and hilarious in parts. More like L.O.G than Psychoville (both of which I enjoyed immensely).

Cheers

[Daveycandlish]

Very funny with a dark twist. Watch it on catch up, but don't miss it!

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Yeah I really enjoyed that - wonderfully subdued darkness as well - and what a cast! Tim Key was fantastic.

[Frank]

what a cast! Tim Key was fantastic.

Wasn't he! That comic persona and manner of delivery he's developed is as entertaining and addictive as Partridge, but in the context of a narrative and tone as mordant as that it's genuinely unsettling.

[Spikes]

House of Fools last night (Last episode?). Had me in total stitches.

Completely missed every other episode up to now, but thankfully there all on the iplayer.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle: Series 3 Saturday 1st 10pm BBC2



Love him, loathe him or just admit that his intricately constructed and self-aware brand of stand up is at the very least unique in the current oversaturated market: Mr Lee is BACK.

Replacing the formidable Armando Iannucci in the Lee interrogation chair this series is the even-more formidable long lost god of satire Chris Morris. Promises to be be interesting.

[Frank]

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle: Series 3 Saturday 1st 10pm BBC2

At his best, Lee brilliantly and incisively deconstructs commonplace idiocy and lazy thinking, but an awful lot of the running time is the comic equivalent of Amazon delivering a massive cardboard box full of polystyrene packing chips with a tiny pair of bud earphones buried in the centre. He gets too many easy laughs simply by saying the names of commercially successful working class comedians in a sarcastic tone of voice too.

Anyone been watching Line Of Duty (BBC2, Wednesday, 21:00)? I don't like cop dramas, and I only started watching this to have something to talk about with my Mum at Saturday lunch, but it's turned out to be a really gripping and effective thriller. It's in no way ground breaking, but writer Jed Mercurio (Cardiac Arrest, Bodies) knows how to parcel out plot information in an involving way and keep the tense-incident-to-character-development ratio in balance.

The cops are the bad guys, and even the better ones are confronted with the knowledge that they're guilty of the same offences as the people they're investigating. Crucially though, that point's made with a reflective glance at their shoes and emerging from a toilet cubicle with runny mascara, rather than anguished monologues. Most of the subtitled sex-murder and high concept US serials leave me cold; this is the kind of grown-up stuff the BBC should be making to compete in the international market.

[Frank]

TV clash tonight. My Week With Marilyn (BBC2, 21:00) or Graham Linehan's The Walshes (BBC Four, 22:00)?