Digital TV Blog

The BBC today announced this year’s contestants for Strictly Come Dancing, and with models Jodie Kidd and George Clooney’s former girlfirend Lisa Snowdon, the line-up promises to be even more glamorous than last year.

The models will be joined S-Club 7’s Rachel Stevens, former M-People frontwoman Heather Small, actress Cherie Lunghi of Kenko advert fame and The One Show presenter Christina Bleakley, as well as former Eastenders actresses Gillian Taylforth and Jessie Wallace. This time eight couples will compete – two more than participated in the previous series.

The troupe of men include TV Chef Gary Rhodes, Olympic swimmer Mark Foster, who carried the flag for Great Britain at the opening ceremony in Beijing, and rugby player Austin Healey.

Also competing will be former footballer Teddy Sheringham, Former British tennis champion Andrew Castle, actors Don Warrington, Phil Daniels and Tom Chambers, as well as political broadcaster John Sargeant.

The announcement will have put an end to rumours that former pop star Peter Andre and his glamour model wife Katie Price would appear on the show.

The show returns to BBC1 on 20th September, hosted once again by Tess Daly and Bruce Forsyth.

Clash of the Titans

Those who were watching the grand final of the inaugural season of the new improved Gladiators (Sky One, Sundays 8:00pm) were treated to a tantalising snippet of next week’s all-star cast; original Gladiators Lightning, Trojan, Hunter and the living legend that is The Wolf slip in to the spandex once again to show young upstarts Atlas, Panther, Battleaxe and boy wonder Spartan how it’s properly done.

In the preview, which also sees Ian Wright and John Anderson having a blazing row, culminating with Wrighty being chucked into the drink, former ladies man Hunter is pitted against Spartan in Duel and screen villain Wolf does battle with self-styled bad boy Oblivion, in the ultimate ‘who’s the hardest’ face off. Lightning will aim to prove that she can strike twice by facing off against elemental newcomer Tempest on the Wall event.

“The audience was explosive and phenomenal and clearly wanted more of the Wolfman.” - Wolf

Wolf – AKA Michael van Wijk – said: “I was blown away by the buzz I felt competing in the Gladiators arena again. It was like I’d never been away. The audience was explosive and phenomenal and clearly wanted more of the Wolfman.

“Hearing them chant my name brought back some incredible memories and it all made me realise how much I just had to come back.”

Indeed, Wolf managed to claw back a good 60% majority of the vote on the “Which Gladiator legend are you most pleased to see return?” survey over on Sky.com.

The 90 minute special, broadcast on Sky One and Sky One HD will also be the last show for presenter Kirsty Gallacher, who helped relaunch the show, which we hear has been commissioned for a second series. Sky are currently on the lookout for a new female co-host, and for more contenders for the second series, which is already set to feature another Legends Return special. Let’s hope they bring back the giant hamster ball event from the original.

Hollywood Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, co-creator of American political drama The West Wing, has agreed to write a film about the creation of the social networking site Facebook.

Sorkin, who also wrote feature films such as Charlie Wilson’s War as well as two Broadway productions, has even started a page on Facebook called Aaron Sorkin & The Facebook Movie to help him in his research.

“I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page,” he wrote in his introduction to the page.

Sorkin admitted that he had been unfamiliar with Facebook when approaching the movie and was still finding his feet on the site.

“I honestly don’t know how this works, which is why I’m here,” he said. “If anyone has any questions I’d be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments I’m glad to listen. And if anyone has any Facebook stories I think they might be helpful”.

Fans have been asking questions alright, from how Sorkin plans to approach the Facebook movie (”I honestly don’t know how I’m going to write the movie yet”) to where to find the best cheap food in New York (”Grey’s Papaya on 72nd and Broadway is where you’ll get the best two hot dogs you’ve ever had and a coke for $3″).

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Popular Neighbours actor Ian Smith, who plays bumbling grandad Harold Bishop in the Australian soap, has finally decided to pack his bags after 21 years on Ramsay Street.

The veteran actor had already decided to scale down his commitments to the programme back in November 2007, but will now leave the show altogether, filming his final scenes in October. His decision to leave the programme has saddened the cast, with one member describing him as “the heart and soul” of the programme.

“Ian really set the tone of the show, both on the set and behind the scenes,” he said. “As well as being a consummate professional, he’s all about creating a positive vibe that brings the cast together”.

Australian Channel 10 was at pains to make clear that the decision to write Ian Smith out of the show was his own. His resignation will be another blow to Channel 10, which has struggled to attract more viewers after giving Neighbours a renovation and moving the soap to Five from BBC1 on British TV.

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Axe Factor

Kelly Osborne’s fashion series Project Catwalk has been dropped by Sky One. Based on the American series, Project Runway which is presented by supermodel Heidi Klum, the show follows different designers as they compete against each other in order to avoid being “the next fashion victim”. Fashion designer Ben de Lisi offers both criticism and support to the designers, giving tips as to how they can improve their work.

The programme, made by Elisabeth Murdoch’s independent production company Shine, was launched in 2006 with Liz Hurley hosting the show. However, Kelly Osborne took over from Hurley in the second run last year, when viewing figures began to dwindle. Last season’s run attracted just 110,000 viewers compared to 300,000 for the first series.

A spokesperson for Sky confirmed that the show would be axed next season:

“Project Catwalk was a great addition to Sky One’s schedule. Kelly Osbourne, Ben de Lisi and the team have provided a fantastic platform for genuine talent, introducing the rising stars of fashion to the UK”, he said.

“We felt the series had come to a natural end and we’re now looking for some new female-skewed formats for the 8pm slot to complement our success in the 9pm and 10pm hours.”

Richard Woolf, the controller for Sky One added that Sky was now looking for another “female-friendly formatted show” to replace it.

Return of the Celebrity Insult Generator

Celebrity Big Brother is to return to Channel 4 next year, the broadcaster has announced.

The hugely popular reality show was taken off the air in 2007 following a race row in which contestants Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara hurled abuse at Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, prompting more than 50,000 complaints and leading to effegies of the candidates being burnt on the streets of India.

In its place Channel 4 broadcast a successful cookery season on its main channel featuring celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall among others. Meanwhile a replacement reality TV show, called The Celebrity Hijack, was aired on E4.

However, Channel 4 has since had talks with production company Endemol and is thought to be planning another series on its main network. As part of the new agreement Channel 4 is not obligated to air every episode if it feels that doing so would be inappropriate. A spokesman for the broadcaster said that no final decision has yet been made.

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The Second Coming of controversial C4 doc

Channel 4 has announced the return of its highly acclaimed documentary Dispatches: Undercover Mosque.

The original documentary showed an undercover investigation into extremism in British Mosques featuring preachers who called for homosexuals to be killed, advocated male supremacy and predicted jihad.

Just three months ago, Channel 4 was awarded libel damages and a police apology after receiving false accusations of misleading the public. West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service paid a six-figure sum to the broadcaster as well as to the production company - coincidentally named Hardcash - who were responsible for the programme.

West Midlands Police had taken Channel 4 to Ofcom, claiming in a statement written jointly with the CPS that the broadcaster had “heavily edited” the words of the Muslim preachers featured on the programme so that the meaning behind their words was “completely distorted”. However, Ofcom ruled that the programme had not been deceptive, but rather “dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context”, prompting the two companies to sue for libel.

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Keep On Running

The minute “Run Lola Run” kicks into action, you’re swept along at lightning speeds as the unstoppable red-haired Lola (Franka Potente) sprints through the streets of Berlin, dodging cars, window panes and a host of nuns, driven by desperation, always running.

The story goes as follows: Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who is due to give his gang boss 100,000 Deutsche Mark at 12 noon but accidentally leaves it on the underground after bolting from two ticket inspectors. The bag of cash is then picked up by a tramp. The couple have 20 minutes to come up with the cash, somehow, somewhere, or Manni will be killed.

The film then plays with three alternative realities. We see the same scene three times. Lola sprints past the same people, but in each version some tiny turn of events changes the course of Lola’s fate massively. Cleverly, whenever Lola runs past (or into) a person, we see several snapshots of their life to come. In the first scenario for example, Lola bumps into a poor woman who kidnaps a baby after her child is taken from her by social services. In the second version, the woman wins the lottery, and the third time around she experiences a religious conversion. The message is that tiny events can have enormous consequences.

Film is ideal for exploring alternative realities, and certainly director Tom Tykwer makes the most of his medium. The throbbing, hypnotic techno music, co-written by Tykwer, perfectly matches the film’s adrenaline-fuelled rush.

Refreshingly the film does not explore any moral themes, nor does it judge the violence and greed of gang members. Rather it is an introverted film which focuses almost exclusively on the running itself.

Run Lola Run is showing at 9pm tonight (Friday) on Fiver

Austen Powers

It’s all bonnets, bodices and barouches this autumn as a flurry of period drama adaptations from the likes of Dickens, Austin and Hardy hit our screens in the coming season.

BBC 1 will air a fresh, sexed-up version of Tess of the D’Urbervilles starring Gemma Aterton as Tess and Gavin and Stacey co-writer Ruth Jones as her mother. The new adaptation of Hardy’s magnificent rural tragedy promises to be “big, passionate, violent, romantic, sexual” according to screenwriter David Nicholls. The novel has already been screened several times, most notably by Roman Polanski in a film starring Nastassja Kinski in the title role.

Aterton also stars in ITV1’s Lost in Austin, a drama inspired by various Austin novels. Amanda Price (reference Fanny Price of Mansfield Park fame) is a frustrated romantic who adores Jane Austin novels and wishes she could escape to a world of English country houses, country dances and suppressed passion. Then one day she finds a secret door to the world of her favourite novel, Pride and Prejudice. But the “real” story is in danger of being thrown into disarray by her presence.

Whilst conceding there’s been a lot of Austin on the box in recent years, the show’s producer Kate McKerrell said the show is original in that it is “trying to think of a way of retelling the story on modern television”.

Other historical dramas on this season include an adaptation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, directed by Andrew Davies, and Peter Flannery’s “In the Thick of It”, a political drama starring Peter Capaldi as Charles I. Capaldi also takes a role in Channel 4’s The Devil’s Whore, spanning the English Civil War.

ITN rolls with You Tube rival

The news corporation ITN has announced the launch of six channels related to news, sport and music on the French video-sharing website Dailymotion. This is the first such deal to be struck by a British news partner with the rival to YouTube.

The channels due to be launched will have the names ITN Entertainment, ITN News, ITN Music, ITN Sport, Games and Gadgets and OMG.

The ITN News channel will air breaking news stories, as well as news round-ups and an environmental news bulletin.

Programmes on other channels include quiz shows, video games review shows, celebrity gossip from both the UK and around the world, as well as music broadcasts. Advertising revenue from the programmes will be split between ITN and Dailymotion.

Website users will be encouraged to upload their own video clips, blog comments and photos.

Creative director of Dailymotion UK, Digby Lewis said “This perfectly complements our roots in citizen journalism and curated content from our Motionmaker community.”