If there must be an angling show with a thriller movie pun title, Fishing Impossible certainly beats The Prawn Ultimatum. But it is also part of the rise of TV’s most unlikely new supergenre – rural pursuits.
The success of Countryfile in laying a green belt across television – weekly audiences of up to 9.6 million people, daytime spin-offs – has encouraged other networks to reach for their wellies.
Fishing Impossible is one of two primetime pastoral launches on ITV this week, with Countrywise: Guide to Britain starting on Friday. These come on the muddy heels of the BBC’s surprise success All Aboard The Country Bus! – a two-hour documentary showing a journey through the Yorkshire Dales in real-time, from the first passengers getting on to the last getting off.
Those who are cynical about the rise of Slow TV might want a detailed breakdown of how long people actually stayed tuned in across the two hours, and what else they were doing while the programme was on.
For me, after a few minutes, All Aboard The Country Bus! came to resemble an unusually picturesque driving hazard awareness video. Who has two hours to give to a show in which the sudden sight of a sheep is a plot-twist, or a low bridge warning sign counts as a cliffhanger? The Yorkshire Dales, though, was spectacularly telegenic, and one clear reason for the popularity of countryside TV is that it serves as sofa-tourism.
So Fishing Impossible is an opportunity to see the ravishing scenery of British Columbia – countryside TV from another country. The Canadian Tourist Board would clearly be pleased (this is not an accident – rural TV is often a sub-division of holiday programming).
However, in Fishing Impossible, the Slow TV vibe is off-set by the mad-lad shtick of the presenters. The trio comprises sensible Charlie, who narrates, Jason, who is desperately trying to float the catchphrase “I’m the Cornishman!”, and the self-elected eccentric Blowfish (as he insists on being known).
The sight of three men in extended adolescence pranking each other is so familiar that you soon suspect the concept was pitched as Top Spear. (Clarkson might have called it Salt and Battery.)
Charlie, Jason and Blowfish are in BC to hunt coho salmon, but there’s a catch – they need to compete with the bears. In the Clarkson-Hammond-May tradition, each has to come up with an anti-grizzly strategy. So Charlie builds a camouflage hide, Jason decides to run up a tree if he hears furry feet, and Blowfish puts on a white bear suit. A scene in which the blokes measure who has pulled out the biggest fish will surely romp the Bafta for Most Obvious Sub-Text. It seems unlikely to be up for any others.
If Fishing Impossible pitches its tent somewhere between Top Gear and Wish You Were Here, Countrywise also keenly tracks the footsteps of other programmes. The title follows Countryfile so closely that nine of its eleven letters are the same, though it loses the pun on those who are philes for nature.
The first edition of Countrywise also sails in the wake of BBC’s Coast with its three seaside locations: Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, the Scilly Isles and Norfolk’s Holkham Beach.
But other influences are soon apparent. Conscious of the popularity of crime TV, Ben Fogle tours the Scillies with a policeman so underworked he has no idea how his siren works. (Nice for the Scilly Isles Tourist Board.) Channeling anthropomorphic wildlife shows, Liz Bonnin writes life stories for her feathered co-stars in Dorset: “This willow-warbler has got romance on her mind.” Over at Holkham, “celebrity country-lover” Victoria Pembleton is riding along the sands with the Queen’s Household Cavalry on their summer break. The horses even trot in slow motion.
The most likely explanation for this glut of rustic TV is an attempt to offer alternatives for fans of The Archers who are finding the everyday story of husband-stabbing folk a bit bleak. But with so much of this stuff on television, there is a risk that the viewers of the rumoured Slow TV follow-up – Return To Richmond: All Aboard Again! – will see through the windows of the bus filming for Countryfile, Countrywise or, if Blowfish survives the bears, Fishing Impossible: Yorkshire.
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