THAT WAS THE BOX – June 2015 (Week Two) | TV Reviews

 

‘BIG BROTHER‘ (CHANNEL 5 – DEMAND 5)
 

I promised an update some point during the current run of ‘Big Brother‘, and seeing as it has been on for about six hundred and nine weeks (or so it feels) I thought I’d better honour my pledge.
 

This is not the most illuminating of series, so much so that several of the housemates who promised so much in the beginning, were ousted and replaced with four absolute horrors. It is very difficult to remember one thing botox Barbie twins Amy and Sally ever said, Harriet just cried, pulling the most unfortunate face since Ian Beale. Keiran was only entertaining for his muppet voice and Sarah promised to be this year’s Helen Wood, but instead blended into the wallpaper. So we are left with the following;
 

• Jade – I started off hating Jade. The big-headed, polyamorous (greedy), gangly Anne Hathaway look a like started off by pissing off all her fellow housemates by isolating herself, thinking all the boys fancied her, and constantly putting on that possessed voice. But a few weeks living with stronger characters has broken Jade and she has come down a peg or two, and whilst gobby, she has become a team player and I really like her. I reckon she’ll be there till the end.

 

• Jack – Mr “I’m Gonna Win It”. If Jack doesn’t win it, I fear we may get some sort of Incredible Hulk scenario, and out of his strangely flabby, feminine body, a green, growling Adonis will emerge. Don’t be taken in by the Mr Nice Guy persona, Jack is fiercely ambitious. Just witness his reaction when Showbiz Simon nominated him.

 

• Joel – what is wrong with this boy? He’s nineteen going on forty-five. He doesn’t have conversations, he does interviews. He’s remarkably prudish for a ‘Big Brother‘ contestant, and I think he did over react to Aaron‘s shenanigans. He could have just got into bed with Nick, but he instead walked around exacerbating the situation. Aaron deserved a telling off, but I thought kicking him out because Joel has issues, was wrong.

 

• Christian – Christian is very pretty. But he has zero personality, except for his strange array of accents. He is clearly posh, so what is it with the street talk? I can only blame his youth.

 

• Chloe – she really annoyed me in the opening weeks. She didn’t seem to do very much and just gawped in wonder at anyone who was posh, gay, ate with a knife and fork etc. But her battles with Simon have given her a backbone, and whilst she is never going to be the most interesting housemate, she is down to earth and normal compared to some of the ‘characters’ in there.

 

• Nick – I love Nick. He is shy, weird, androgynous, awkward and yet strangely outgoing at the same time. There is something sexy about him, but I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s the shyness, or that his eagerness to hang around with more adventurous girls like Jade and Harry show that under the nerdy persona there is a bit of a sexy beast lurking. Nick is another housemate who I think will be there till the end, as he is interesting, but doesn’t rub people up the wrong way.

 

• Danny – as with Christian. Danny is very pretty. But he is bland. He is the self-appointed Dad of the house, and keeps order. But that is about it. To be honest, if he left, I don’t think I’d notice he’d gone.

 

• Simon – oh my god, Mr Showbiz, who claims to be forty-six, and yet I could swear I heard him say to Christian ‘I’m sixty next year’ and let’s face it, he looks it. Simon has a face I want to slap. His fake crying became boring after the second time he did it, and arguing with a young girl like Chloe does him no favours at all. Please let him be evicted soon.

 

• Sam – the woman with the annoying voice and annoying hair. She is so ‘me me me’ it hurts, and I feel she would do anything to get air time. She professed to fancy Danny, but when he ignored her, she moved onto Marc the night before evictions, and I can’t help but feel it was to get airtime, and also win the public over. After all everyone loves a romance. Sam rubs everyone up the wrong way with her constant harping on about herself and over-positivity. I don’t trust people like that. Life can be pretty crap at times, so people who go around quoting things they’ve seen on picture frames in Asda come across as dark souls who are hiding behind their smiles.

 

• Harry – I really do not want to see your body any more Harry. I would go ape if she cooked my dinner wearing nothing but a bit of dental floss around her nether regions. It’s unhygienic and ugh! Okay, so she walks around naked at home. It doesn’t mean she has to do it in the house. I don’t understand why Aaron was kicked out for running around naked and making people feel uncomfortable, and yet Harry is allowed to do it. Oh silly me, of course, she’s a woman, so it’s acceptable for her to flaunt herself. And what is it with her voice? Has she got a speech impediment or something? She constantly talks as though she has a mouth full of cotton wool.

 

• Marc – I fear Marc suffers from the same condition that afflicts Katie Hopkins. They are so full of self-hatred that they constantly pick on people and be as offensive as possible, to make people hate them. Marc, the stripper with the strange body, walked into the house, claiming that it was now ‘Marc’s house’ and they all had to do what he said, and he has proceeded to tear through the place like an offensive whirlwind, claiming Chloe had an STI, picking people up and throwing them on beds, having a war with Harry over I’m not sure what, dry humping a bed, walking around in his horrible underpants, scaring us with his weird teeth that don’t seem to fit into his mouth properly and his strangely plucked eyebrows. He is a vile housemate but unfortunately the one we’re all going to remember this year.

 

This week Sam, Marc and Simon were all up for eviction, which we all knew was fake, but they thought was real. Marc was evicted and sent to live in the Big Brother Bunker with former housemates Nikki Grahame, Brian Belo and last year’s winner Helen Wood. From her tweets, Helen loves Marc, I wonder if she’ll feel the same after forty-eight hours of living with him.

 

 

‘THE INTERCEPTOR‘ (BBC ONE – BBC IPLAYER)
 

After ‘The Game‘ finished last week, I was looking for another gritty Brit drama to get my teeth into, so I thought I would give ‘The Interceptor‘ a go. It began with a young boy walking through a council estate, and we knew it was back in the day because he was listening to pre Jason Nevins Run DMC on a cassette Walkman, and a Ford Cortina was parked on the other side of the road. He them witnessed his dad shoot another drug dealer and then run off. We then cut to the present day and said young boy is a grown man with a beard and everything.
 

Marcus ‘Ash‘ Ashton is working for Customs and Excise and when a deal with Paul Kaye (wearing his hair in plaits for some reason) goes wrong, and he kidnaps the Thai woman who I’m sure Arthur Layton abducted in the first episode of ‘Ashes to Ashes‘, he also takes Tommy, Ash‘s Arctic Monkeys obsessed sidekick along with him. A crash happens and Tommy is left paralysed. Hence why Ash becomes hell-bent on finding the crook who maimed his friend.
 

Let’s get things straight. OT Fagbenle, the leading man is not leading man material. Ash may have a coat which he turns the collar up, and he is able to make instant judgments about people, but he is no Sherlock Holmes. He might be a big hulking handsome man with issues, but he is no John Luther. I think the problem is that he seems too young. He may be supposed to be married to Tanya from ‘Eastenders‘ and have a couple of kids, but he comes across as a rather immature. Idris Elba, as Luther can fully display the range of emotions of a man who has spent forty years on this earth and is at once jaded by everything that has happened to him and yet is convinced in his own superpowers to put things right.
 

When Ash got asked to join the mysterious UNIT, I got a bit confused and thought he was going to be required to fight alien life forms. But it turns out UNIT isn’t the same UNIT as on ‘Doctor Who‘, but the Undercover Narcotics something or the other. They work in a big office full of ancient computers and seem to do exactly the same work Ash was doing for Customs and Excise.
 

The show only became interesting at the end when the kingpin Ash is obviously looking for, turned out to be Trevor Eve. I am wondering if he is actually Ash‘s dad, who I presume disappeared twenty-five years ago. This is the only reason I will carry on watching it, and I will try to ignore the clunky dialogue, constant clichés and OT Fagbenle‘s Craig David face. I fear the BBC may have to resign this to their ‘could have been Spooks mk2 but failed’ pile.

 

 

‘DOMINO’S PIZZA – A SLICE OF LIFE‘ (CHANNEL 4 – ALL 4)
 

Well, I certainly didn’t know working for Domino’s Pizza was such a huge commitment. I thought it was just something failed chefs did, and students delivered pizza to make a few bob to see them through college. But it turns out that it can be a job for life if you so want it. Domino’s is an American company, and has that American ethos of anyone can make it to the top if they work hard enough, and if you start off as a delivery driver, there’s no reason why you can’t one day be CEO.
 

In this programme we were introduced to Matt Taylor, the manager of a Welsh branch of the chain, who, several times, reminded us that Domino’s saved his life. He was a child who had gone off the rails and was heading for jail, when Domino’s gave him a chance and he not only worked his way up to manager. He also met Emma, his wife, who is an area manager. He is evangelical about Domino’s and I feel sorry for anyone who should slag the company off in front of him. There was also Zagros, a store manager who fled Iraq as a teenager and has worked his way up from delivery driver to manager. He is also the current holder of the fastest pizza maker, and we saw him retain his title. He also won manager of the year, which didn’t please Matt. Yes you have beaten adversity Matt, but Zagros comes from a war zone. It’s hardly the same.
 

It seems to me that you don’t just work for Domino’s Pizza, you join a cult. The chanting and motivational talks are rather unsettling, but I guess in areas where there is high unemployment, it provides people with work. Domino’s pizzas are delicious, I have to say, but I’m a little perturbed that they don’t wear gloves when handling food. Maybe I’ll just get one for a fiver from Waitrose next time.
 

Funniest part for me was when two lads went out to publicise a new store, and targeted a local football match, and despite one of the guys wearing a Domino’s t-shirt, and a big replica of the Domino’s mascot on his head, they thought they were rival fans from Millwall! Yeah, right love, keep taking the medication.