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Anonymous

Anonymous
  • Posted at 4:30pm
  • 16 July 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 4 comments

The mere prospect of Anonymous on ITV1 on Saturday (18 July) makes me want to take out my own eyes, poach them on a low heat, cover them in Tabasco sauce and pop them back in again.

I haven't seen it, so if it's a daringly experimental piece of work that will leave me aghast with its elegant artistry then I'm prepared to be flogged in the market square of your choice. But it sounds like a load of old tosh to me.

We've probably all seen the publicity shots of Louis Walsh done up to look like an old woman (ho ho). And by the time some of you read this, you might well have actually watched it, god help you.

I think the idea is that "celebrities" such as "Coronation Street actress Jennie McAlpine and ex-rugby player Matt Dawson" are disguised by elaborate prosthetics to play pranks on their family and friends.

How old does ITV1 think I am? Nine? Why would anyone think Anonymous could possibly interest me, or anyone else mature enough to form complete sentences who no longer lives in a cave?

But that's the thing about Saturday evening, and Saturday night, telly. The evenings are just a great big playground, with the TV equivalent of log flumes and fairground rides, while Saturday nights are a weird sin bin of not very good documentaries, drama repeats and just plain old repeats of just about everything else.

Perhaps it's that age-old assumption that the whole world is out on Saturday nights, drinking too much rosé wine, or swinging from trapezes or whatever. This is pretty much the same thinking behind Sunday night telly being cosy and somnolent because we are all deemed too exhausted from all of that trapeze-work and our tiny brains can't stand anything stronger than the absolutely cretinously awful drama Hope Springs.

Quite apart from the fact there's a recession and we are all supposed to be staying in more, why do Saturday evenings/nights have to be so bad? Just look at BBC1 in the early evening - Totally Saturday, Total Wipeout, Total Rubbish (oops, that last one was mine), The National Lottery: Guesstimation then - Casualty.

ITV1 gives us Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (is that still going?) and a Frost repeat. On Channel 4 - Born Survivor: Bear Grylls (first shown on Discovery) and ER (first shown on More4).

The only glimmer of light is over on Five, with a new-to-terrestrial series of the splendid Law & Order: SVU. But even that's four years old. AND it's on at 10.55pm.

I've given up bothering to look for anything to watch on Saturdays - it's my boxed set night. From now on, it's me and my boxed sets.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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Comments

  • Posted on 19 July 2009
  • at 10:14am
  • by MIke

Please do so then. As you say there is nothing on, a new show should be given a chance! Did you even watch it or are yor opinions based (incorrectly - Louis Walsh as an 'old woman' ?) on any research at all?

The pilot follows on from four successful years of the show in Ireland and is at least a break away from the normal Saturday night repeats. Sounds like you could do with a break from bashing shows without having the decency of actually watching them first. A pointless comment/blog entry, disgraceful.

  • Posted on 18 July 2009
  • at 5:31pm
  • by Jim

The BBC has as an article of faith that its viewers are morons. Even when it broadcasts an arts programme such as The Proms some really weird thinking goes on. "There might be a person in Romford watching this who hates classical music so we mustn't have a presenter who says anything a three year old might not understand or who appears to actually like this stuff in anyway other than as you like brylcream or chips. Let's hire a comic and a couple of grinning idiots to say things like "smashing" and "fabulous".... What is this mentality? Why the embarrassment of talking about music or architecture or paintings like adults since most people watching the programme DO know a little more that the banal tripe trotted out on such occasions and the man from Romford really doesn't care either way and is much more likely to get interested by something genuine than by simulated oomph. Last night we had the absurd situation where the Director of the Proms was interviewd for a couple of minutes to be bundled off so the silly giggling Clive Anderson could fawn over Stephen Fry whom the BBC seem to regard as some kind of savant. It's an absurd cult of personality: is there any evidence that it is what most of us want?

  • Posted on 18 July 2009
  • at 4:46pm
  • by lynn(e)

Brillant post it inspires me to write more. well done alison p.s i do like total wipeout though :)

  • Posted on 18 July 2009
  • at 9:53am
  • by julie

You got it right about the new show what Stephen Mulhern is doing becasue it as been done before and now it is old hat like most of the crap on Saturday and Sunday night tv.

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