Sunday 22 November

BLOGS

blogCategory
Previous
Back to blog
Next

Flight of the Conchords

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie
  • Posted at 4:08pm
  • 06 December 2007
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 20 comments

Every week I've dared myself to sit through an entire episode of Flight of the Conchords. I rarely get very far. Seconds after the title sequence I'm overwhelmed by a restlessness that fatally undermines my resolve.

Flight of the Conchords makes my teeth itch, it makes my scalp want to get up and walk around the room, it makes my eyes want to poke themselves out.

I had such high hopes, too. I enjoy pastiches, if they are done well, and I'd heard Flight of the Conchords' musical parodies were particularly fine. And they are. It's just that there aren't enough of them.

If you haven't seen Flight of the Conchords (and you probably haven't - its audience is tiny, even by multi-channel standards) it's about a half-witted New Zealand folk duo, Bret and Jemaine, and their efforts to find success in New York.

It's excruciating. The pair spend episode after episode locked in endless circular arguments, bickering to the point of idiocy. Nothing happens, which usually doesn't matter in a comedy. But in Flight of the Conchords nothing happens in an unfunny way. It's been compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm, to which I can only weep and stutter "You must be joking!"

The leaden, laboured Kath & Kim similarly arouses my ire. I know it's a "cult" hit, but to me "cult" means "not funny".

*

In a fairly dull week, as the TV companies keep their powder dry for Christmas, Spooks provides a beacon in the darkness. Of course, it's nonsense (former MI5 head Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller was very sniffy about it on Desert Island Discs recently) but I'm sure no-one involved would ever hold it up as some kind of spies training video.

In the penultimate episode, the Spooks are targeted by a hitman. He wants them all dead and comes up with an absurdly convoluted scheme to gather them all together in the same place before he strikes. It seems to me a very labour-intensive way of carrying out a mass assassination, but luckily I know little of such things.

There can be few things on earth more deadly than listening to sportsmen and women talking about sport, so the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year is to be avoided at all costs. As is Blue Murder, the lame cop drama starring Caroline Quentin. It tries to make a virtue of its very ordinariness but just ends up being tedious.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times.

Link to this post
Post a comment | 20 comments

Comments

  • Posted on 21 October 2009
  • at 9:16pm
  • by Dave_Mc

What can I say? I guess everyone has different tastes - but I was shocked enough by this review of the Conchords to actually want to make the effort and declare that it is by far the funniest series I've had the pleasure to chance across in a long long time.

  • Posted on 09 July 2009
  • at 1:03am
  • by Incredulous

Besides your approval of the highly overrated and predictable Curb, and your familiarity with Kath and Kim which i can only assume you have used as a comparison here because, either you don't understand it, or you consider all antipodean humour to be the one and the same, I'd love to know what it is that you think is funny?

Are Curb and Kath and Kim the only comedy programs you have watched?

  • Posted on 02 June 2009
  • at 9:29pm
  • by videokilledtheradiostar

I think this is probably a generational and a cultural thing.

I love Flight of the Conchords, but I think you have to be familiar with that kind of back-and-forth "banter" and understated irony - in other words, you need to understand that they're mocking themselves and people like them. The show's humour lies precisely in the fact that the Conchords are so ridiculously laid back and never appear to really achieve anything or get anywhere.

As for Spooks...well, if you've watched 24, it just seems plain embarrassing.

  • Posted on 02 June 2009
  • at 6:26pm
  • by Florence

You are the worst tv critic i've ever come across.

  • Posted on 12 May 2009
  • at 6:59pm
  • by Emma

May I echo what everyone else said.

Flight of the Conchords is a shining beacon in a sea of mush, and you madam, are wrong. BTW, It won a grammy.

Try watching it instead of criticising it.

  • Posted on 12 May 2009
  • at 4:24pm
  • by Matthew

Next time get someone to write the article who knows something about comedy.

  • Posted on 30 April 2009
  • at 7:17pm
  • by Jaffas

How did you get a job as TV critic? I think you're being far too partial. Anyone with a brain can tell its script is genius and its format is fresh and novel, even if its not to your taste. Considering many people read your articles, you might want to think about the kind of effect you're having on the audience figures of an almost unknown programme. Then again, the show is aimed at a younger generation so they might be pleased that an older woman is shunning it.

  • Posted on 23 April 2009
  • at 10:01am
  • by opinionator

Flight of the Conchords, as it is known, to those in the know, is *quite* funny and the characters are attractive enough to warrant watching even when the attempted humour falls short. The humour does so quite often seeing as it based primarily on an acceptance of the whimsical world the characters inhabit - the "bickering to the point of idiocy" comment isn't that far off the mark. I also agree that comparing it to "Curb" is ludicrous: that show is the product of a extremely technical and highly experienced comic genius. "Flight of the Conchords" inspires great fondness in the viewer but "Curb" inspires awe.

  • Posted on 20 April 2009
  • at 9:59am
  • by sugarlequesne

You can only feel sympathy for someone who fails to appreciate the sheer understated joy of the Conchords. And who doesn't get the vim of Kath & Kim. Pension her off and make her watch endless repeats of My Family

  • Posted on 14 October 2008
  • at 12:59pm
  • by Bob

Its not your fault you cant appreciate subtle and fine comedy. I bet you didnt really get the office either. F o the C as they are known to those in the know, are great musicians and comedians with perfect comic timing. The only point I would agree with is that their music isnt featured enough in the TV series. But thats hardly a negative is it? We want more is never bad? Alison needs to stick to her own generations comedy - last of the summer wine is right up her street, I'm sure. ;)

  • Posted on 05 October 2008
  • at 9:57pm
  • by Bill Crosseley

I agree with Mike you should sit through anything and everything that you are asked, after all it is your job.

I mean when i am at work i don't start writing a report and then say:- 'well this is fantastically difficult, I can't be bothered lets watch spooks...'

To do this would result in the loss of my job, not that i am suggesting anything...

  • Posted on 28 September 2008
  • at 10:27pm
  • by Mike Greenwood

someone can't appreciate brilliance.

I must say as a T.V. Editor at the radio times you of all people should be able to sit through anything for more than a few seconds after all there is so much drivel on T.V these days e.g Sppoks. I can't believe that a person in your position can freely admit to not watching an entire show of a series then giving it a review that is what i find ridiculous: 'It makes my teeth itch, it makes my scalp want to get up and walk around the room, it makes my eyes want to poke themselves out.'

  • Posted on 22 December 2007
  • at 4:35pm
  • by neptune

I do not watch this. However, I disagreed with the comments about 'Blue Murder.' I find, that Caroline Quention, brings, a warmth, and practicality, to the series, which is lacking in other crime shows. It is also, refreshingly, free of obscenities, for which the current euphemism, is 'Strong Language.'

I tried Spooks, but found it irritatingly slick, and preoccupied with superficial good looks, and is now very violent. M!5 is unimpressed with it, apparently.

Ms Graham, could try using less pretentious language. I agree with very few of her comments, on Christmas programmes. Celine Dion particarly, has her merits, as do After You've Gone,' and 'My Family,' to name three. '

The Old Curiosity Shop,' looks good, as does 'Sense And Sensibility.

  • Posted on 11 December 2007
  • at 10:27pm
  • by anthonydroom

I think you'd better stick to Catherine Tate or whatever utter gash you seem to find funny.

PS: Curb Your Enthusiasm is vastly overrated.

  • Posted on 09 December 2007
  • at 5:22pm
  • by huntersbar

Flight of the Conchords sound great. I must watch it sometime.

I actually stopped watching Spooks in the middle of an episode, it was so bad. It was not so much the acting (Rupert Penry-Jones plays himself so well and Robert Vaughan is grea... oh hang on, that was the other one), but the plots seemed to have been copied from some GCSE coursework.

The story (as i recall) involved a mid-air collision between a cargo plane (carrying 24-esque nerve agent) and an advanced US military fighter. The spooks infiltrated some demonstrators at a US base, got inside the base (past the most inept securty) and were able not only to enter the cockpit of the crashed cargo plane (which was in remarkably good condition considering it was a crashed cargo plane), but also enter the cockpit of the top secret advanced US military fighter and download some stuff from its computers. I don't know how it finished as it was at this point I decided not to watch Spooks anymore and turned over.

Spooks jumped the shark while combing its hair and saying 'Heeeeeyyyyyyyy' to Howard Cunningham.

  • Posted on 09 December 2007
  • at 9:19am
  • by leishman161

Flight of the conchords is great. The best comedy of 2007.

  • Posted on 08 December 2007
  • at 2:49pm
  • by chrislovesbuffy

Clearly Alison Graham is of a very different humour generation if she fails to understand the subtle pleasure of Flight of the Conchords. The duo and their surrounding character entourage has been a real highlight of this television year. In terms of comparisons, I don't personally feel it is fair to measure it against either Curb or Kath & Kim, each show is unique in style.

As for Spooks, I stopped watching when the shark was jumped back at the end of series 3. It does sound as though things haven't improved however as the reviewer uses the phrase 'absurdly convoluted' to describe a plot line - and this is with Alison Graham being an advocade of the show!

  • Posted on 08 December 2007
  • at 9:50am
  • by James@Bassett-iom

I think the fact that Alison regards Spooks as a "beacon in the darkness" says it all really.

Funny stuff! :-)

  • Posted on 07 December 2007
  • at 6:26pm
  • by TaniaMichele

I totally agree with the above user - I love Flight of the Conchords. It's funny in a different way from conventional one-liner sitcoms, which is refreshing. You have to laugh at the uncomfortable silences and naivety of Bret and Jemaine, the low budget production and their willingness to satirise racism in the states. I don't understand how it can be compared to Kath and Kim though - I find THAT excrutiating.

  • Posted on 07 December 2007
  • at 2:52pm
  • by Deddhead

Funny how two people can see things so differently, isn't it! Flight of the Conchords is absolutely my favourite show of 2007, bar none. I only have to hear Murray speak and I'm starting to chuckle...

The current season of Spooks, on the other hand, has completely bored me rigid (which is a shame, as I've enjoyed it a lot in years gone by). I haven't even bothered trying the last two or three episodes, I just can't make myself care about the increasingly one-dimensional characters involved.

Neither show makes any attempt to be "realistic", but for me Conchords works wonderfully while Spooks this season utterly fails to suspend my disbelief.

Post a comment

Do you have something to say about this post? Share your thoughts…

Post a comment

(first or nickname only)

Please do not include any personal or personally identifiable information about yourself or others (including email addresses). All information you submit about yourself or others can be viewed by others.

Thank you for your comment

Thank you for your comments. All comments will be looked at by a moderator, however, due to the numbers of comments we receive, we can't promise that all will be posted on the site.

Post another comment

More


Advertisement