Digital TV Blog

This one’s a keeper

Austin Powers in Goldmember, Friday 29th Feb, FilmFour 9pm

Possibly the best of the Austin Powers series sees the Wayne’s World and Shrek star indulge in more casual Europhobia via simultaneously mocking the culture and people of both Great Britain and the Netherlands.

Featuring more unsubtle product placement, a rhyming slang exchange complete with subtitles, the ‘Mole’, a genius performance from British screen legend Michael Caine as Austin’s father Nigel Powers, and a pre-custody battle meltdown Britney Spears, Goldmember is the clear winner when compared to the rest of the cinematic guff on the telly this weekend.

Choice quotes from the film include:

Mini-Me: “Are you sure you don’t have a little clone in you?”

Beyonce: “Yes I’m sure.”

Mini-Me: “Would you like to?”

Dr. Evil: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my submarine lair. It’s long, hard and full of seamen… No? Nothing? Not even a titter?”

Nigel Powers: “Do you know who I am? Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I’ve killed over the years? I mean, look at you. You don’t even have a name tag. You’ve got no chance. Why don’t you just fall down?”

The shoosting begins at 9pm tonight on FilmFour.

TV company trials prospective hardware

Sky have reportedly finished testing out the digital receivers for their proposed Picnic service, with Sky employees now trialling the system in their home.

The service is delivered a la Freeview, and will use its own branded set-top box with the Sky Picnic logo (pictured) subject to Ofcom’s approval. The receiver comes with MPEG-4 encoding, which will apparently be used for HD support.

The Picnic moniker refers to the customers the freedom to pick and choose what they want from Sky, be that, fixed line calls service, broadband, or digital TV. It appears that Picnic will be launched as a sister product to SeeSpeakSurf, with the Freeview-plus Sky channels TV package an alternative to the full blown 800+ channel satellite TV service.

As there will be no engineer required to fix a dish, Sky are thought to be pitching Picnic as a self-install affair. The updated Netgear DG834GT ADSL router that comes with the Picnic broadband tentacle comes with a handy set-up CD to guide those of us who are less tech-savvy through the process. Let’s hope it’s Vista compatible.

More medical train wreck telly

Bizarre ER, broadcast regularly on weekdays on BBC Three, is certainly one of the strangest things to be shown this year, and is certainly not for the easily queased.

The series starts of fairly tamely, with a toddler having a small piece of Lego removed from his nose; later we hear of a story about removing an aubergine from an arsehole, a chap driving a golf ball into his girlfriend’s mouth, and an unfortunate gearbox-scrotum combination.

The Beeb camped out at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital for five months, where amazingly, they managed to get an interview with Circus of Horrors star Captain Dan. You may remember the story of this seasoned performer last year; Captain Dan, who specialises in doing things with his body, had to go to A+E when he got a Henry vacuum cleaner permanently attached to ‘Little Dan’.

The narration is inexplicably provided by Freema Agyeman, star of the BBC’s family friendly Saturday evening sci-fi Doctor Who. Who’d have ever thunk that a Doctor’s assistant would ever utter the phrase “jizz fridge” on national telly?

As well as the more humours stories, there are some more moments of pathos; a boy who loses his fingers after a freak bouncy castle accident has his toes sewn onto his hands, and a man who lost all his limbs in a cement mixer bravely recounts his tale. Both puerile, retch inducing and sad, Bizarre ER is not recommended post-evening meal viewing. Especially if your meal included aubergines.

They’ll be back

The pilot episode of successful Terminator spin-off serial The Sarah Connor Chronicles debuted on Virgin 1 last Friday, raising the bar for the channel’s viewing figures, drawing in 642,000 viewers on its initial broadcast, and a further 744,000 on the later +1 timeshift run, beating the 323,000 number of viewers who tuned in on the channel’s opening night.

The show is set directly after the events of the second Terminator movie, and sees Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker, playing the respective roles of Sarah and John Connor, on the run again after they realise that their previous efforts merely delayed the creation of Skynet and Judgement Day. The pilot episode features the appearance of a new T-888 assassin who tracks down John at his new school, and another protector filling the Arnie role this time in the form of a beautiful teenage girl.

The series, broadcasts in the States last month, has generally been well received by critics and audiences alike, and is a real coup for Virgin Media, who want Virgin 1 along with Living, to become a prime UK channel in the vein of Five, Sky One, and C4 etc.

In other movie spin-off news, Virgin also snapped up the broadcast rights to Blade: The Series, which, although only running for one season, attracted a cult following when it was shown in the US.

I hear that train a comin’…

Walk the Line/Hot Fuzz Saturday 22nd February, Sky Movies

Here at Digital TV Towers, we’re torn between two recent cinematic greats for our Friday Feeling this week – after the near unanimous pro-Flash vote of last week, we’ve now seen an even split of hands over the acclaimed Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and Hot Fuzz, the second part in the ‘Blood and Ice Cream’ comedy trilogy courtesy of the Pegg-Wright-Frost configuration.

Ultimately, your choice depends on if you want to see a beautifully shot and fitting tribute to one of the most revered and influential American musicians of the 20th century or a genius parody of high-octane police action movies set in a tranquil Gloucestershire village.

Walk the Line is shown twice at 10:25 and 17:40 on Sky Drama, and Hot Fuzz is shown at 12:40 and 20:00 on Sky Comedy. Of course, watching Hot Fuzz after Flash Gordon means you get two doses of Timothy Dalton in the space of two weeks. Lucky you eh?

Even more regulation

Sky are to challenge the government order to reduce its stake in ITV. The Competition Commission said in December that the shareholding was detrimental to competition in the pay TV market and against the public interest; Business Secretary John Hutton eventually ordered the satcaster to cut its holding to 7.5 percent.

Sky said it would appeal to the Competition Appeal Tribunal this Friday; Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch offered that the “reality is that competition in this marketplace is as vigorous as ever – a merger has not taken place, Sky and ITV are distinct entities with independent strategies and Sky could not block a shareholder resolution without voting rights,” and that the commission’s case was built “on a series of implausible hypotheses and has recommended an arbitrary remedy for a nonexistent problem.”

Sky stand to lose well over half the cash amount it paid out for the stake in 2006 if forced into an immediate sale.

Sony-backed format triumphs

Whilst this isnt strictly a post about the telly, it will be of interest to those who’ve shelled out for big expensive HD Ready TV sets, presumably to enjoy the superior picture and sound quality available on next gen services and products such as Sky HD, V+, Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Sony’s Blu-Ray has won the battle of the HD formats, as HD DVD backers Toshiba formally announcing that it is to cease producing HD DVD discs and players. This is bad news for Xbox owners who shelled out for the add-on HD DVD players, although thanks to the deal done with BT Vision, owners should be able to watch downloaded HD content when the platform is released next year.

People have been quick to point out that this is a repeat of the old VHS/Betamax format war, although the difference here is that both the HD disc formats were practically identical in terms of image quality. Blu-Ray discs had the edge over HD DVD in that they could store more information, but the Toshiba-backed product was cheaper to manufacture and reportedly was easier for studios to implement interactive elements such as fancy DVD menus and hidden easter eggs.

Pathetic Earthlings… Who Can Save You Now?

Flash Gordon, Sunday 17th February, ITV4

In days gone by, those of us who were weaned on a measly five channels could only pour over the satellite and cable listings in the Radio Times with a mixture of awe and envy. However, with the digital age now offering customers unprecedented variety, it’s often hard to decide what to watch over the weekend – we’re spoilt for choice.

‘Friday Feeling’ is a new feature of the Digital TV blog; we find the time in our busy schedules to scry the forthcoming weekend on our EPGs, and sit around like old philosophers discussing what would make the ultimate weekend viewing experience.

After several hours of reasoned debate and mud slinging, we decided that the absolute pinnacle of televisual entertainment available on British screens this weekend simply has to be the 1980 film adaptation of comic-strip superhero Flash Gordon.

Who can argue with Brian Blessed dressed as a giant hawk-man (”Gordon’s alive?!”, “Squadron 40! DIVE!”), a cameo by Kenny Baker, Timothy Dalton’s torso and the truly epic soundtrack by Queen (John Deacon: bass and synthesizer, Brian May: guitar and synthesizer, Freddie Mercury: lead vocals and synthesizer, Roger Taylor: drums and synthesizer)?

Flash Gordon, starring Max von Sydow as evil slaphead Ming the Merciless touches down on ITV4 at 15:10PM on Sunday afternoon.

and E4 Skins up a second series

Today sees the first broadcast of institutional antipodean hit soap Neighbours on Five, after becoming a cornerstone of BBC1 viewing figures for more than 20 years. Luckily for those who had managed to timetable their weekdays around the 1.35 PM broadcast have only got to put themselves out by another ten minutes – the show will air at the new mid-day time of 1.45PM and will be rebroadcast again at the traditional 5.30 PM showing.

As of yet, five.tv isnt showing anything Ramsay Street related – the appropriate link on the site instead directs you to Neighbours.com You could always Sky+ it.

In other new soap broadcast news, if you’ve somehow missed the Channel 4’s blitzkrieg promotion, series 2 of Skins ballet dances its way onto digital screens on E4 tonight, and unlike Neighbours, the full pilot episode of the new series is already available to watch at e4.com/skins.

Super Tuesday is NEXT week, says Beeb

Even though it’s been Super Tuesday in the States this week, it’s next Tuesday that is going to be super for BBC Three. Next week which sees the digital channel begin simulcasts of its programmes live on t’internet at bbc.co.uk/bbcthree. The channel will also undergo a major visual facelift to coincide with the launch of the new service, and to seal the deal, it will also begin rolling with a pair of ambitious new shows aimed at a young adult audience.

First up is the pilot for a genius-looking futuristic crime drama Phoo Action which is loosely based on the Jamie Hewlett-created comic strip ‘Get The Freebies’, which was a regular feature in The Face magazine in the mid nineties. Phoo Action is centred around the crime fighting exploits of riot grrl Whitey Action and gay kung-fu expert Terry Phoo on the streets of London in 2012.

Another programme aimed at ‘Generation Jpeg’ is Lily Allen and Friends, a talk show loosely based on the themes of social utility websites MySpace and Facebook, where the guests who appear on the show with Ms. Allen do so under the guise of being one of her top 20 internet buddies. David Mitchell from Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look and American actor Cuba Gooding Jr. will be among the first guests on the show.

Danny Cohen, BBC Three big cheese, said: “I’m delighted to confirm BBC Three’s fantastic line-up of new programmes on air from next Tuesday, along with our innovative and exciting approach to television for young audiences… BBC Three is aiming to become Britain’s most ambitious multi-platform network – combining television and the web into a single, integrated offering.”

Hopefully they’ll cancel the genuinely vile Sex… With Mum and Dad whilst they’re at it.

BBC Three goes online next Tuesday the 12th of February.