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REMOTE CONTROL
Brian Donaldson reckons that a man playing with our minds is more entertaining than watching a woman talk to a Chihuahua
Old spookv drawers is back i.’.'lw;tner /011 think that Derreri Brown". psychological lHUSlOl‘il'fll‘. is at hes: a cod sub-genre of the black arts and at worst a wholly pointless exercise which rrierel,' proves iiist hon much of a show-off he is. I'd find it difficult to believe that anyone could not be engrossed b/ the first nalf hour of The System (Channel .1, Fri 7 Feb, 9pm .00. l. I say first half hour,
because the DVD sent out to revrewers was shy of the grand finale in which we Witness Derren's chosen ‘VIctirn' putting her every last penny on a racehorse which he insists is a surefire bet. thanks to ‘The System' which has already successfully predicted five Winning nags in a row. seemingly picked at random.
But rather than Just a cliffhanger ruse. we get a written apology on SCreen from the CroydOn coniuror himself. letting us know that it w0uld be not only wrong of him to continue With his explanation of how rt all works but it c0u|d prove to be ultimately disastrous. The revelation Simply has to be concealed until the night this show goes out. Intrigued? Oh come on, you must be.
Another man who knows how to put himself and his audience through the mill is stand-up comic Dave Gorman whose DFBVIOUS eprOits have included him finding people across the globe also called Dave Gorman and iOurneying the web and then the OutSide w0rld in search of Googlewhacks. While those misadventures were clearly concocted from exhaustive discussions down his local boozer. this latest mission is
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rip. the a: "’}"l,“"'lrt"‘. stores and farm, rs". gas stat which .ve'e price the back: r:‘ the Ar'ierir,anrlrea"1out naye strive Lee" siz'arnped by globalisaticr‘. As. “is heard gets heaxier and his; "ats become tarooiier, Gornian resembles nothing less t ‘an a Bél’ll‘, Draw“ 8:). .‘Jllh an 'i|*CL()7l(§(fi\."9fi concept which gets a tad repetitive oi. er the course of its 80 minutes. Soriiething a bit less noble and a lot more silly next time. please.
Life in Cold Blood (BBCI, Mon 4 Feb. 9pm 0000 l is what colour televrsion was invented for. David Attenborough's latest Vibrant and vrvrd nature show has him hanging out With a range of amphibians and reptiles. and in the first episode cliriiaxnig With the fruits of his half-century search for the world's smallest chameleon.
Inside Hamas (Channel 4, Sun 70 Feb. 7pm .00 l feels like the kind of programme that Channel ‘1 was made for: a frontline investigation into the grOup which. after 20 years of insurgency against ISrael has now been handed an electoral mandate to police its own people on the Gaza Strip and is making a right pig's ear of it. Peter Capaldi narrates this depressing documentary tunicli shows the chaos which can sorttetimes be ‘.'.rrCught peocre who haxe been ased to strtiggie and fight are unable to understand the tenets of diplomaCy
Has to be said that it bet" a struggle and a fight to get through- the opening episode of Hey Paula! r/TVQ. Fri 7 Feb. 77,977 0 l. They say that what doesn't kill to'ti makes
DRAMA SPIN-OFF ASHES TO ASHES 8802, Thu 7 Feb, 9pm coo
The best things about Life on Mars were the entrances and the exits: Gene Hunt’s breathy welcome to Sam Tyler about looking forward to his spaghetti hoops meal; Tyler’s rude awakening in 1973 and his final leaping off a roof in 2007 to get back there. And in this spin-off, which probably seemed like a great idea at the time but is threatening to turn into a commissioning editor’s worst nightmare, the opening salvo from Philip Glenister’s imperious alpha male is the finest moment about this first hour and may well end up the series' highlight.
This time around we meet Dl Alexandra Drake who has woken up in 1981 after being shot through the tummy in 2008 and is being haunted by a man dressed in Bowie's pierrot costume from the iconic ‘Ashes to Ashes' video (if they do a third show, what ‘classic’ can they possibly choose from the later Bowie oeuvre?). In the face of the Met's misogyny (Hunt and co have been relocated) Drake has a tough time getting to grips with her dysfunctional present and her disembodied past.
But like the unwitting time-travelling crimefighters in both shows, their sense of déja vu is all too equally shared by the viewer. Watching Keeley Hawes stagger around a Thames boat party to see men with their jacket sleeves rolled up and wailing the crescendo to ‘Wenna' mirrors John Simm’s bemusement as he passed by flared youths and Dixon-esque bobbies in a desolate Manchester, while once again our copper receives mysterious phone calls and ends the day bellowing at the TV. As tempting as creating a spin-off must have appeared, some things are best left well alone. (Brian Donaldson)
‘,OU stronger, but this ,iust can't be
true when I feel positr.re:,r drained of
zest for life naxing ‘.‘.’l7f‘i€SS€‘d this
latest dullard ‘reaht,’ affair. Ir“ it Ms
Abdul bickers .vit'n her people about ' thezr inability to back her cothes.
crasrs at the OJC rep a rttakirtg her i". screen to se” exielle"; sh once-choose r‘c g
barely {SUE ears o‘ ner rodent-like pet dogs. Now. it nod beer Hey with Sir Attencorotigh carousmg With a Chihuahua. that would have been worth watching.
THE LIST 93