My Week in Television: 29/03/09 – 04/04/09

Posted by Steven Cookson Apr 4, 2009

Another week down, another batch of variable TV which makes you question just what the hell are you spending your time doing. Instead of writing discovering a way to help the homeless or invent a new life saving drug I sit about watching a middle-aged actor walking about with scales on his shoes. But more about that later.

Dispatches: The Trouble With Boris on Channel 4 was interesting. Being a fan of Boris’s TV work it was an eye opener into some of the rash decisions he has made during his time in office. It wasn’t one of the most impacting episodes of Dispatches but I did like that they focused more on his policies rather than his embarrassing ping pong speech.

Mid-week on ITV1 there was a new reality series called Cops with Cameras, which was about as inventive and exciting as the title built it up to be. Look, I have no problem with documentaries following people during their job but I do get fed up of things been overblown for the sake of entertainment which is what went on here.

Friday nights on BBC Two have traditionally been the place to be for comedy. This has dissolved somewhat over the years but a new gameshow thing called Genius, presented by Dave Gorman, tries its hardest to tip-toe on the line between weird and just downright crazy. This week had Jonathan Pryce, who actually was a lot more entertaining than the comedians from past episodes.

Other stuff I watched this week were peerless drug/cop series The Wire on BBC Two (which I’ve seen but there’s no harm in watching it through again), Stewart Lee being “tediously politically correct”, James talking himself into a hole on The Apprentice, Horne and Corden’s latest public humiliation and the outstanding quotable mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap on ITV1.

I’ve also just rounded off the second series of US serial killer drama Dexter. Seriously, I wish we made more TV shows like this over here. While not being the best American import (although it features some excellent riffing on one of my favourite films - American Psycho) it does display the huge gulf in quality and originality between the UK and the US when it comes to drama. Except for the dark and disturbing Red Riding Trilogy of course.

It’s a shame really because we were once on top of the world when it came to hard-hitting, entertaining TV productions with some of the finest actors around. In the US they have stuff like The Shield, a really tough, well acted and superbly written series that shows that sometimes the people catching the criminals can be much worse. What do we have over here? The Bill. It’s just not fair.