Brian Cox’s Wonders Of Google Earth
Having completely explained the universe in his last four Wonders… series, Brian Cox takes to exploring Google Earth in streetview mode, starting from his own Battersea abode (“You can see the roof, look!” he says, wondrously. “That’s fascinating, that.”) and travelling by skateboard to his home town of Oldham. In between, he visits the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower, but is most moved by a candid streetview diorama of two stray dogs humping. “We were all baked in the heart of the stars,” says Cox, tears filling his eyes. “And now we’re this. Life is wondrous.”
Songs Of Praise: Remixed
In the all-new SoP, Diane-Louise Jordan is replaced by a panel of teens who run the rule on how much God “slays” in various different Bible stories and detail how much shade he threw at various Old Testament kings (“Shady towards Solomon, TBH,” says a baseball cap-wearing Zoella), before a guest MC drops a fire verse over that week’s main hymn. Pitbull attracts record complaints for loudly saying “DALE!” over the Lord’s name during an especially high-tempo remix of Jesus The Redeemer, while Snoop Dogg’s interpretation of Abide With Me (“Abide With ME, Motherfucker) spends 15 weeks at No 1.
Bill Oddie: Animals!
Whispered animal-watching TV show Springwatch is given a youth makeover by pairing Bill Oddie with Dappy, tasking the former with explaining what various animals actually are to the latter, each in the context of how big they are compared to a dog. “A badger is like a dog but angrier, and with bigger claws,” Oddie tells Dappy. “A kestrel is like a small dog that can fly.” The ill-advised 5am live performance of Year 3000 by guest band McBusted scares an entire den of foxes into sprinting across an A-road, abruptly causing the series to be cancelled.
Hashtag Midsomer Murders
The sleepy but murder-heavy county of Midsomer is thrown into disarray as ITV forces the cast to solve the murders with a host of new technologies. Sergeant Charlie Nelson is consistently hampered by technology – locked as he is into an Oculus Rift and rumbling gaming chair – and spends one episode desperately trying to upload crime scene photos from his iPhone to his PC but accidentally Instagramming a close-up of a vivid head wound instead. Meanwhile, DCI Barnaby is on the hunt for the man who put a selfie stick through the heart of the mayor, using Tinder to find people who set their location to somewhere vaguely near the crime scene. Dozens of housewife liaisons later and he’s no closer to catching the killer, but a social-media manager at ITV HQ says that second-screen engagement is “off the charts”, so it gets another thrilling season.
Antiques Roadshow’s 90s Nostalgia Edition
The touring TV-friendly antiques survey gets a millennial revamp by replacing the lines of old people politely queuing and holding vases with rows of people who vividly remember the 90s all clutching on to a box-fresh Hungry, Hungry Hippos. But, as it turns out, millennials don’t know how to queue: years of watching The X Factor means they cannot wait in line without crying about their childhoods while simple piano music plays. Host Fearne Cotton struggles to maintain order until a hushed silence takes over Norwich Cathedral, when a pristine Sega Megadrive is discovered. “I would say you should be insuring this for anything up to eight pounds,” says Bunny Campione. “Add in the Mega CD base and the 32X stackable extension, as well as Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and I can see this lot could making anything up to a tenner at auction.”
Brothers Green: Eats, 28 April, 9pm, MTV
