This evening Paul Heath from the Pharos Project and I attended the Torchwood DVD signing at HMV, Oxford Circus. Unfortunately, we didn’t get an interview with John Barrowman or Eve Myles. But, we were allowed to stand in the press line and take photographs. Here they are:
Thanks to HMV for allowing us access to the event
Warwick launches a new website in an effort to get himself more work, but it only ends up getting 12 hits and some nasty online comments. His clients at Dwarves For Hire believe that Warwick always takes the best roles for himself and he attempts to appease them by creating showreels re-enacting famous film scenes. I feel that this episode is where Life’s Too Short finally found its feet. This is what I’ve been waiting for, some quality time with Warwick. The celebrity cameo is in the last few minutes and the episode works so much better because of it. Helena Bonham-Carter doesn’t overshadow the episode, in the way the Neeson and Depp did. 
We were left with Warwick and Cheryl and this is when the show is at it’s strongest. For series 2 I’d rather they toned down the celebrity cameos, maybe go an episode or two without them.
The critic’s main problem with Life’s Too Short, is that it features an adult male dwarf playing an adult male dwarf, as opposed to a leprechaun or a goblin. It’s worth a pretty penny nowadays when dwarves want to play something other than an Oompa Loompa. This is almost the same problem Jon Watkins had with The Fosters, back in 1976. I thought we had moved on.
Life’s Too Short airs on Thursday’s at 9:30 pm, on BBC2
I didn’t care much for the first Disney Cars film when it came out in 2006, however, since then I’ve had a son. He adores Cars and has just about every piece of merchandise with Lightning McQueen on it. He has watched the DVD so many times that the disc now sticks and requires replacing. Over the multiple viewings, it’s grown on me and I’ve even learnt to love Mater.
We went to see Cars 2 in 3D full of enthusiasm and excited to see the latest instalment. It was a letdown, my son got bored and wanted to run around and I wanted to go back and see the far superior Rio.
The story this time involves Mater being mistaken for a super-intelligent spy. Visually it is up to the high quality you’d expect from Pixar, but plot and story-wise it’s extremely poor. It’s a parody on a Bond film that we’ve seen done a thousand times. To me this movie was Pixar apologising to Disney for making Up, a film they couldn’t sell toys about. The best thing on this disc is the Toy Story short that is on the extra features.
A third instalment is inevitable, due to it being a huge cash-cow. Let’s just hope they actually have a story instead of a toy commercial.
DVD extras:
Cars 2 is available on DVD and Blu Ray
I have been a fan of Karl Pilkington for a long time and used to tune into Ricky Gervais’ Saturday Xfm radio show religiously to hear Karl’s ramblings. I have been a fan of the podcasts since they started them and I have read Karl’s books. Yes, he is a published author and I have enjoyed spotting Karl’s cameos in all of Gervais’ and Merchant’s work. Safe to say, I was always going to watch An Idiot Abroad. 
Now, if you did not like An Idiot Abroad first time round, this series will do little to win you over. Karl had such a rough experience filming the first series that he vowed he wouldn’t make a second. However, An Idiot Abroad was the most-watched programme in the history of Sky 1, so a second series was always going to happen.
This time around Karl got to pick things he wanted to do from the bucket list. A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die. Swim with dolphins, drive along Route 66, etc. Ricky and Steve still pull out all the stops to make Karl’s experience as hellish as possible, from sending him to a hug-party, to getting him dressed up by Thai ladyboys and the result is hilarious. Karl is constantly out of his comfort zone and being pushed beyond his limits.
In typical Gervais/Merchant style there won’t be a third series of An Idiot Abroad, but there are plans for a 2012 Christmas special called An Idiot Abroad: The Short Way Round, where Pilkington travels the world on a bicycle with Warwick Davis sat in a basket on the front. Forget the Olympics, this will be the event of 2012.
An Idiot Abroad is available on DVD and Blu Ray
For some reason, critics haven’t been that keen on this new venture from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. I think that’s due to this being Gervais’ year, every year the media seem to pick a celebrity they’ve always liked, then tarnish them. Quite why this is happening is still a mystery to me and that’s probably why I’ll never be taken seriously as a critic.
This series is really starting to take shape, Warwick again puts in an amazing comic performance, everyone involved is perfectly suited for comedy.
My personal highlight happened when Warwick and his assistant, Cheryl (Rosamund Hanson) are discussing ways to expand and bring in new business, she suggests he should dress up as a little girl and wait in the woods, as paedophile bait. In fact, the best parts of this episode were the parts that just featured Warwick and Cheryl. The convention scene was genuinely funny. You felt sympathy for the young boy with the brain tumour, but also for Warwick as everyone in the line then used the tumour excuse to avoid paying the £25 for his autograph.
The only criticism I have about Life’s Too Short is the celebrity cameos, with Warwick and Cheryl I don’t think you need them. It’s almost as if they’re making extras, without making extras. The post-credit scene made me realise, how much I miss extras.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Johnny Depp’s part in this episode, the confrontation between him and Gervais felt authentic, but if you had taken Depp out, it wouldn’t have affected the episode.
Another time you feel for Warwick is when he turns up at the couples, Star Wars-themed wedding and they expect him to be dressed as Wickett the Ewok. This reflects a real-life experience Warwick had when he was asked to open a garden centre at Christmas and told by the owner “bring your elf costume”. The speech Warwick gave at the wedding was the brilliant cringe-worthy comedy that Gervais writes so well.
Overall I’m enjoying this series and I look forward to episode 3
Life’s Too Short airs on Thursdays, at 9:30 pm on BBC2
This was my favourite of the series yet. This episode is so crammed with little gems that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
Nelson is involved in a protest against the build, of a new supermarket. He foolishly leads his fellow protestors to their deaths, but in the process, he meets an older Vixen called Eileen.
Nelson and Eileen soon fall in love, but unknown to Nelson, Eileen is Vince’s mum. Nelson seeks Vince’s blessing and asks Eileen to marry him, but the surprise proposal causes her to have a fatal heart attack. Not wanting Vince to find out that, that’s how his mother died, Nelson asks Tim to take the body back to the nursing home. Along the way, Tim loses Eileen and she is sold to Zoe Ball, as a scarf.
Like last week, it was great to see a softer side to Vince. It’s a shame Eileen wasn’t kept around for a few more episodes. The father/son dynamic between Nelson and Vince would have been interesting to explore, but I’m starting to see that nothing lasts forever in the Mongrels universe.
Elsewhere, Kali has lost her spot on the fence to an African pigeon. Which leads to this week’s musical number, Immigration Nation. Which fitted the episode well. Kali tries all kinds of tactics to get rid of him and then joins a flock. Which after seeing human street-gangs, she believes will help her out. When this doesn’t work out, she tricks the immigrant pigeon into calling Eileen a slag, which prompts Vince to kill him, thus solving her problem. This was a funny subplot, which showed just how manipulative Kali could be when she isn’t getting her own way.
The other sub-plot involves Destiny and Marion, Destiny is angry with Gary after he takes her to the vets, so she pretends to run away, Gary finds him and takes him in. Which leads to bitter sibling rivalry between Destiny and Marion. It was great to see Destiny and Marion fight it out, like well, cat and dog.
Mongrels has hit the ground running this year, a third series is surely a must. This is fast becoming the television highlight of my week, its the only instance I’ve ever wished a British series was 22 episodes.
It won’t be long before we hear the word “American” quickly followed by the word “Remake”.
Mongrels airs on Mondays, 10:30 pm on BBC3
The main movie parody here is Shaun Of The Dead. Destiny is in heat and it has turned every local dog into a sex-crazed zombie. Nelson, Destiny, Marion, and Vince lock themselves inside the pub.
I didn’t really like the main plot involving Nelson and Destiny, that could be because I haven’t seen the first series. I didn’t quite believe that a fox-like Nelson would fall for a dog like Destiny. It felt forced as if it were crafted just to suit the plot of this episode.
Nelson is trying to date Destiny, Destiny is hungry and knows that Nelson has access to food. There is an amusing moment which was a parallel to prostitution and what she would do for a dog biscuit.
It was the subplots that I found most interesting. It is Kali’s birthday so she celebrates by eating a badger on the road. A rickshaw driver runs it over and she wants revenge. She decides that the best way to do this is to blow him up. She then realises that the rickshaw driver had a seven-year-old son and feeling guilty she hits the bottle. Well, a brandy filled straw.
She decides to attend his funeral, so guilt-ridden she sits on his coffin and confesses. However, the rickshaw driver was a bird lover. The widow and her son think that Kali is the reincarnation of the driver and are overjoyed to see her. Kali’s mood is then lifted and she flies away, hitting the son in the face.
It was great to see an aloof character like Kali realise the consequence of her actions. The writers managed to capture her depression extremely well, I genuinely felt sympathy the murdering bird.
Back in the pub Marion has discovered a karaoke machine and attempts to throw a party which doesn’t go to plan. Vince hogs the karaoke machine after he discovers it helps with his Tourette Syndrome. Seeing a character like Vince belt out show tunes was funny. It was nice to see a softer side of him, even if it was just temporary.
The pop culture references are great in this episode, as well as the obvious Shaun Of The Dead, there is a nice moment where Marion reveals he lived in a house with the Being Human characters. This included a cameo from Russell Tovey, which now means he has starred in all three of the only three shows worth watching on BBC3. Whilst not as laugh out loud as episode one, episode two raised more than a few smiles. I hope Mongrels clears up come comedy award season.
Mongrels airs on Mondays at 10:30 pm, on BBC3
In which your heroes look at the Doctor Who episode, Aliens of London.
One of us actually liked it, one hadn’t watched it and one struggled to find anything to say about it.
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While I never got into The Office, I have always been a fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s other work, like their X-FM radio show, their podcast and Cemetery Junction. So, when they returned to their mockumentary-style sitcom format with Life’s Too Short, I was excited to see what they had in store.
Unlike the ordinary people who got their 15 minutes of fame in the late ’90s, the show focuses on a Z-list celebrity, Warwick Davis, playing a fictionalized version of himself. Davis is in a financial mess, with debts amounting to £250,000 and a divorce that’s taken its toll. He begs Gervais and Merchant to cast him in a new project, but they try to shake him off.
While the first episode didn’t make me laugh out loud, it was still enjoyable and funny. I think comedy is a challenging genre to get right, which is why I prefer to write reviews instead of sitcoms. Nevertheless, the show had its moments, like Liam Neeson trying out improv comedy about AIDS, with his quip about being cast in Schindler’s List because he always makes lists being a particular highlight. Davis also showed some impressive comic timing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he won a few awards in 2012.
Overall, while the premiere was a bit shaky, Gervais and Merchant on an off day are still better than most of what’s on TV. I’m going to stick with Life’s Too Short and see where it goes.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m a newcomer to Mongrels, somehow I missed the first series, which is strange as this is one of only a few shows worth watching on BBC3.
So, what’s Mongrels about?
It is a puppet-based show for adults, as a grown-up Sesame Street and is the closest thing we have in the UK to Family Guy.
Mongrels follows the exploits of a middle-class fox called Nelson (Rufus Hound), Nelson’s foul-mouthed cousin Vince (Paul Kaye), Streetwise pigeon Kali (Katy Brand), a dumb cat called Marion (Dan Tetsell) and a dog called Destiny (Lucy Montgomery). They all live in a pub garden on the Isle of Dogs.
The episode starts with a flashback to Nelson’s childhood where he witnessed his grandfather die during a fox hunt. Now an adult Nelson is in therapy. A former bully from Nelson’s school days turns up. The bully is dying and wants Nelson to put him out of his misery. Nelson reluctantly kills him and asks Marion to get rid of the body. Nelson and Kali share a psychiatrist who accidentally lets it slip. Kali spreads the gossip around the beer garden and Nelson is seen as a hero in the eyes of his friends. Nelson is then recruited by a secret society of foxes that are planning to assassinate the four remaining dogs that were part of the hunts. Nelson is promised an iPhone and a £30 House of Fraser gift card if he completes the mission. Nelson tracks the four dogs down, but can’t quite bring himself to kill them, so he takes them back to his den under the pub.
What Mongrels excel at is the movie parodies and quick-fire out of the moment sequences that Family guy is famous for. The parody here is any Nazi hunter film that you have ever seen. The dogs speak in German accents and take their own lives when they think Nelson’s bunker is under siege.
The episode’s subplot involves Destiny being signed up to a celebrity dog walking service. She pretends to be Cuba Gooding Jr’s London dog and falls head over heels with John Terry’s dog. After John Terry’s dog turns her down, Destiny decides the only way forward is to treat him mean. John Terry’s dog is completely obsessed with her. Destiny then tells the other dogs to follow her lead, which they all do and this results in the dog’s trust. A passer-by sees the injured dogs and phones the Dogs Trust taking the dogs away.
The episode is genuinely funny. The flashbacks and Grange Hill references had me in stitches, the musical number that Destiny sings is also a genius piece of comedy writing. It’s safe to say that Mongrels has a new fan.
Mongrels airs on Mondays, at 10:30 pm on BBC3
