Gogglebox has lost its allure. Maybe
Usually, Gogglebox occasions an outpouring of hysterical passion and affection. It’s something I’ve shared since I came to it late last season and fell in love with Sandy and Sandra, and their saucer eyes and bangle-jangling dancing. For the first time this week (Channel 4, Friday), I noticed people bitching on Twitter. The new couple, Giles and Mary, were unpopular (especially because of the wallpaper that matched their armchair). Someone wondered if Sandy and Sandra were hamming it up for the cameras too much. (Sacrilege!) And the Comic Relief footage of a child dying was exceptionally manipulative – both of the Goggleboxers and of us. Is it all now looking too staged?
There was still plenty of social-media love, to be fair: “The best programme on the TV by a country mile.” “I love the Malones and their dogs.” “Time for the best programme of the week.” So let’s not sound the death knell too soon. But it really didn’t help that next came a double dose when “posh tipplers” Steph and Dom, celebrating this week’s announcement of their book deal, popped up on Alan Carr’s show. Surely next week’s episode has to show Steph and Dom watching themselves appearing on Alan Carr. Gogglebox is already telly eating itself. Now it’s telly eating itself eating itself. A dangerous precedent. Someone somewhere is erecting a hurdle over a shark …
Good documentary is about empathy not judgement
Louis Theroux’s documentary on being “got guilty by reason of insanity” was disturbing and nuanced (Sunday, BBC2). It reminded me of reading Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test: the same empathy and analysis. Good to see Theroux using his serious side, and not playing it for laughs. There was always a hint of menace and things being about to kick off, though. “For a few years before I killed my father …” Gulp. Louis, deadpan: “So how did it end up that you ended up killing your father?” Theroux pulled the emotional tightrope taut here, in a way we rarely see, and seemed to have an unusually intimate relationship with his subjects. “Part of me wants to see more grief …” he says, voicing the viewer’s thoughts. The interviewee, Jonathan, was unable to respond. By the end, though, Jonathan could see that other people thought he had “a good heart”. Uncomfortable but important viewing.
Team KZK rules Netflix
On Friday, Netflix launched its latest salvo in the bid for world domination with the extraordinary dysfunctional family drama Bloodline. Anyone who is not rendered powerless and insensate in the face of this example of superb film-making cannot be a human being. The trio behind Bloodline is known collectively as KZK. Writer/producers Daniel Zelman and brothers Glenn and Todd A Kessler are best known for multi-Emmy-winning Damages, the Glenn Close extravaganza which perfected their technique of flashforwards, flashbacks and “red herring” narration. The rave reviews are not overblown. Episode one hinted at the real meat of the piece: the fraught relationship between “good” brother and detective John (Kyle Chandler) and “bad” brother and pseudo-druggie Danny (Ben Mendelsohn). Beware spoilers and just watch.
It’s not advisable to miss two series of something and then return near the end of series three
Mr Selfridge is still going! (ITV, Sunday) With the last episode of series three coming next week, Mr Selfridges headed both literally and metaphorically for a vote of no confidence. For the casual viewer, this episode was a good advert for not leaving a series for a long time and coming back to it much later. (I was slightly addicted to series one, due to the involvement of Spiral’s Gregory Fitoussi as a window-dresser.) KZK addressed this problem over 5 series of Damages, changing some of their plots and ideas so that Johnny-come-lately viewers could still watch on and off. Mr Selfridge could do with a similar device.
The only people I still recognised were Mr Selfridge and the accountant, Mr Crabb (who is superbly stiff-upper-lipped). Some things, however, had not changed. Like the basic message: Mr Selfridge is very ambitious and will stop at nothing to succeed! “We need to make a lot of profit quickly,” Mr Selfridge said many times in lots of different ways. “How much of this do we have to sell?” “All of it.” Even if people throw eggs! Sadly, though this series has ended up a bit too Downton: caricatures, plot over character, melodrama. Still, Zoe Wannamaker as a Russian was enjoyably mad.
