Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe: Paper Edition Part 2

Gameswipe - quite good wasn’t it? We loved the chiptune version of Grandaddy’s AM180 at the start, along with references to Turbo Esprit, the ZX81 and Your Sinclair. Hamstrung a bit by rebuking lazy media coverage of violent games, but then spending much of the show showing needlessly violent bits from those very same violent games, but hey. One of the most nicely well-informed gaming shows ever to grace television, alongside BBC Scotland’s VideoGaiden. Here’s hoping that despite the total lack of publicity from BBC Four, it attracted enough viewers to make a full series worthwhile, or at least to make it an annual fixture.

Anyhow, on with the second part of our Scanorama, with several images fresh from the glass of our glacially slow Epson DX3850. First up, the April 1996 copy of PC Zone. This was from the time Brooker contributed a monthly cartoon strip to the magazine, going by the name of Cybertwats. It’s a bit of a shame Brooker packed in doing his cartoons, to be honest. We really enjoyed his Superkaylo website back in the steam age of the internet (no longer online, and sadly blocked by a pesky robots.txt on wayback.org), and can even remember his work for Oink! comic in the 1980s.

(Disclaimer: at this point, we’d like to point out that, despite any evidence to the contrary, we actually haven’t been stalking Charlie Brooker since about 1988. It’s just that he’s had a habit of cropping up on publications and websites we happen to read or frequent. It’s quite bloody alarming, actually. Oink! comic (which we piggin’ loved as a kid), a Your Sinclair letters page, PC Zone in print, And then in the digital age, Superkaylo, NTK.net (which was the first home to TVGoHome), the old SOTCAA forum, and a couple of newsgroups we used to post on in the late 1990s. If anything, he’s stalking us. For fuck’s sake, even the first two words of the Guardian Guide’s review of BrokenTV were “Charlie” and “Brooker”. We’re not even joking.)

It’s a thumbnail. You know what to do, with the clicking, and the bigness, and the “open in new tab”.

There was also a Brooker-penned review of some early offerings from Sega on the PC CD-Rom market. Things were so strange with the PC gaming market in the mid-90s, that the utterly forgettable Comix Zone was the better of the three offerings. Even that only got 68%, and as PC Zone was a games magazine likely to give a CD-Rom title that pumped you full of eye cancer a score in the mid-70s, that really isn’t very impressive.

One thing we’ve just had to scan in from the same edition of PCZ was this advert for another of Dennis Publishing’s magazines from 1996:

Yes, CD-Rom! It’s the future! Look what you get on the covermount! Beavis and Butthead! Playboy! Star Wars! Erm, Myra Hindley! That’s right folks, 1996 was a year that you could plonk a photo of a convicted child murderer on your front cover, and you’d still shift lots of units because there was a covermounted CD-Rom.

On to September 1997, and an edition of PC Zone leading with “Quake In A Codpiece”. So, lots of brown, and a tightly packed scrotum? No wonder the majority of the cover image had a palette comprised wholly of dark grey and black. By now, the letters page had progressed from irate readers whinging about Windows 95 to concentrating on games (or whining about video cards being too expensive, anyway). As for scribblings from the hand of Brooker, there was a review of jolly, family-friendly village-based isometric action-adventure Little Big Adventure 2, a game which was advertised on the back cover of this very issue of PC Zone. Naturally, with it being the latter half of the 1990s, the advert featured a large rendering of the central character in bed with a snoozing blonde, just below a caption asking “Do you remember your first time?”. Ah, the 1990s, when even magazine advertisements for Anusol would probably try to cram in a hugely blatant reference to shagging.

  

There was also an interview with celebrity gamesmaker Peter Molyneux. There’s a thought – you never really see desperate attempts to paint games programmers/designers as ‘celebrities’ nowadays, do you? We suspect Amiga Format’s rather cackhanded attempts at promoting Andrew Braybrook as “the man who killed pop music” pretty much put paid to that ethos, even if he did look a bit like the one with the glasses from The Chemical Brothers.

  

More next time!

(Practically no-readers-at-all’s voice: “Hey, what happened to Data Week Day 3?”)

Oh, shush. It might be back tomorrow, or more likely on Thursday.

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Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe: The Prequel

So, hopefully-not-just-a-one-off BBC Four videogaming special Gameswipe, hosted by loveable curmudgeon Charlie Brooker is broadcast tomorrow night (or tonight, by the time you probably read this). In the pre-show bumph, Brooker has mentioned how he “started [his] writing career penning video game reviews, so Gameswipe effectively sees [him] coming full-circle: it’s evolution in reverse basically”.

Well, what with the BrokenTV office having recently been refurbished with a huge Ikea bookcase – large enough to hold our massive collection of magazines, pointless minutiae fans – we’ve been able to pick out a few choice articles from Charlie Brooker’s time at PC Zone magazine. And, because we’re a caring, sharing kind of blog (oh, and because we hope Dennis Publishing are kind of ‘okay’ with this sort of thing), we’re going to put a few scans of them online over the next few days. Not because we’re trying to take a whole Daily Telegraph MP Pay Scandal approach to this, dragging out an idea as long as it’ll go, but rather because our scanner is really, really slow.

First up: July 1997, and what might possibly be Charlie Brooker’s first published article about telly.

Click for bigger. Ah, you all know how thumbnails work, don’t you?

And while we’ve got the magazine to hand, his preview of slightly disappointing Hudson-em-up Atomic Bomberman.

  
Again, click for bigger. Though if you think we’d be expecting you to read the text from those images, you underestimated just how stupid we really are.

For anyone who might stumble over some issues at a car boot sale, mid-to-late-90s PC Zone was (and still is) a brilliant read. Writers included Charlie Brooker (who also did a monthly cartoon strip called The Cybertwats, and not very good Peter Bagge tribute Late Developers), Your Sinclair/Zero legend Duncan MacDonald, David McCandless, Patrick McCarthy, demented genius ‘Culky’ and several others. Never have a series of game reviews stating “well, you’ll need an extra 8MB of memory if you want to run it through Windows 95” been so entertaining.

 

More tomorrow, crappy scanner permitting.

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Data Week Day Two: Sky One And An Alarming Photo Of Rupert Murdoch

Look, there’ll be a more interesting update along later today, okay?

Anyway, we’ve taken a look at Sky One’s weekly top ten viewing figures over the last 52 weeks. BARB doesn’t have any data for two of the weeks in that period (for some unexplained reason), which leaves us with a total of 500 shows to work from. Which is a handy figure for knocking up charts, so we’ll work with that.

Sky One’s hundred most watched shows over the last year (hey, it might come in handy for someone) are as follows, just after an alarming picture of Rupert Murdoch from BSkyB’s Annual Shareholder’s Report for 2003. See if you can tell what we’ve changed.

That’s right, we’ve cropped out some of the foliage from that shot. That top hundred:

overall rank	show	viewers (000s)
1	Noels Christmas Presents 2 (21-Dec-08)	1,553
2	Lost (01-Feb-09)	1,326
3	Lost (01-Mar-09)	1,264
4	Lost (22-Feb-09)	1,220
5	Lost (25-Jan-09)	1,195
6	The Simpsons (22-Mar-09)	1,185
7	Lost (15-Feb-09)	1,180
8	Lost (22-Mar-09)	1,170
9	Lost (08-Feb-09)	1,158
10	Skellig (12-Apr-09)	1,155
11	Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (01-Feb-09)	1,153
12	Lost (05-Apr-09)	1,117
13	The Simpsons (01-Feb-09)	1,107
14	Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (22-Feb-09)	1,103
15	Lost (17-May-09)	1,099
16	Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (15-Feb-09)	1,099
17	Lost (19-Apr-09)	1,091
18	Bones (16-Nov-08)	1,082
19	Lost (17-May-09)	1,076
20	Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (08-Feb-09)	1,071
21	Lost (08-Mar-09)	1,061
22	Lost (12-Apr-09)	1,059
23	House Season 5 (26-Jul-09)	1,052
24	The Simpsons (11-Jan-09)	1,047
25	Lost (10-May-09)	1,034
26	Lost (03-May-09)	1,020
27	House Season 5 (26-Jul-09)	997
28	The Simpsons (30-Nov-08)	987
29	House Season 5 (05-Jul-09)	986
30	Bones (22-Mar-09)	983
31	The Simpsons (16-Nov-08)	982
32	Bones (30-Nov-08)	959
33	Bones (17-May-09)	946
34	Bones (03-May-09)	945
35	Lost (29-Mar-09)	945
36	House Season 5 (16-Aug-09)	927
37	House Season 5 (12-Jul-09)	925
38	Bones (10-May-09)	921
39	The Simpsons (08-Mar-09)	911
40	Bones (24-May-09)	910
41	The Simpsons (25-Jan-09)	910
42	Martina Coles The Take (05-Jul-09)	903
43	24 Season 7 (18-Jan-09)	903
44	House Season 5 (09-Aug-09)	896
45	The Simpsons (07-Dec-08)	896
46	House Season 5 (09-Aug-09)	893
47	Martina Coles The Take (21-Jun-09)	890
48	Martina Coles The Take (21-Jun-09)	888
49	Bones (05-Oct-08)	886
50	Bones (19-Apr-09)	885
51	The Simpsons (09-Nov-08)	885
52	Bones (08-Mar-09)	874
53	House Season 5 (31-May-09)	872
54	Bones (25-Apr-09)	871
55	The Simpsons (22-Feb-09)	871
56	Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates (21-Jun-09)	867
57	House Season 5 (02-Aug-09)	866
58	Ross Kemp: Return To Afghanistan (01-Mar-09)	862
59	House Season 5 (02-Aug-09)	852
60	24 Season 7 (01-Feb-09)	852
61	Gladiators (16-Nov-08)	850
62	Bones (28-Sep-08)	848
63	House Season 5 (31-May-09)	843
64	House Season 5 (13-Sep-09)	840
65	Bones (15-Mar-09)	837
66	The Simpsons (04-Jan-09)	834
67	House Season 5 (30-Aug-09)	831
68	24 Season 7 (08-Feb-09)	829
69	House Season 5 (21-Jun-09)	828
70	House Season 5 (14-Jun-09)	827
71	Bones (29-Mar-09)	824
72	Bones (19-Oct-08)	822
73	House Season 5 (19-Jul-09)	814
74	The Simpsons (09-Nov-08)	813
75	24 Season 7 (15-Feb-09)	811
76	Bones (12-Oct-08)	811
77	House Season 5 (23-Aug-09)	808
78	The Simpsons (04-Jan-09)	803
79	Bones (02-Nov-08)	803
80	Bones (01-Mar-09)	802
81	Bones (26-Oct-08)	797
82	Bones (22-Feb-09)	796
83	Bones (12-Apr-09)	795
84	The Simpsons (01-Feb-09)	795
85	House Season 5 (07-Jun-09)	794
86	24 Season 7 (05-Apr-09)	794
87	Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates (14-Jun-09)	780
88	Fringe (26-Oct-08)	768
89	The Simpsons (01-Feb-09)	766
90	The Simpsons (08-Feb-09)	763
91	House Season 5 (28-Jun-09)	761
92	The Simpsons (28-Dec-08)	760
93	The Simpsons (25-Jan-09)	754
94	House Season 5 (06-Sep-09)	751
95	The Simpsons (26-Oct-08)	749
96	Gladiators (04-Jan-09)	748
97	Bones (31-May-09)	743
98	24 Season 7 (12-Apr-09)	743
99	The Simpsons (28-Dec-08)	740
100	Lie To Me Season 1 (12-Jul-09)	739

Source: BARB.co.uk The programmes shown were broadcast in the weeks ending in the listed dates.

So, quite a mixed bunch at the top. Slightly surprisingly, as least to us, it’s Noel’s Christmas Holiday Acciden… erm, Present 2 at the top of the pile, with over 1.5million viewers. The majority of the top ten is taken up with the penultimate series of Lost, while the “world premiere” episode of The Simpsons (where the family visit Ireland) also makes the ten. Tim Roth’s performance in original children’s drama production Skellig rounds off the top ten.

No, we’re fine thank you Rupert. So, chucking that lot into a chart that’s never going to be very representative given the fact 84% of Sky One’s primetime schedule is taken up with Simpsons repeats, what do we get?

Pretty much as you might expect. But, what happens when we take account of the types of show making up the 500?

Quite interesting. Only 7% of the shows on the list are actually made in the UK specifically for Sky. Now, we’ll admit that UK-sourced programming was unlikely to eat into the Simpso-Futurama portion of the pie, as it’s so bloody scarce on Sky One, but 7% is really rather poor. It’s also quite interesting to note that not a single live-action US comedy makes the pie – have there been any on Sky One over the last year? At most points in the channel’s history, you could have expected to see shows like Seinfeld, Mad About You, Married With Children, Friends or maybe even Night Court on there (may even I Love Lucy, if you go back far enough), but that seems to have been an entire genre they’ve given up on.

Sky really do seem to be spreading their programming portfolio rather thinly. Of the entire listing, 83.6% of it is taken from just six shows: The Simpsons, Bones, 24, House, Fringe and Lost. Given that three of those shows only interested Sky in the first place was because of the audiences they were getting on other channels (BBC Two, five and Channel Four, you can probably work out the shows yourselves), you might have to question what the programme buyers at Sky One do all day. Apart from sift through BARB’s website so see which shows they can pinch from elsewhere, that is.

Yikes. At this point, you could reasonably say that the US imports dominate the charts because they run for much longer seasons than the original programming commissioned by Sky. A chart compiled of average ratings per programme would probably reveal a lot more, wouldn’t it?

And indeed it would, with the top ten programmes now including a total of six home-grown productions. Noel’s Christmas Presents 2 wins the (notional) annual prize, with Mr Roth in second place. Even Gladiators makes the cut, and with the Simpsons pool being thinned out by repeats in less popular slots, it slips down to sixteenth. Gratifyingly, that means Futurama sneaks ahead of it.

So, with those figures in mind, why doesn’t Sky come up with more original programming? The stock answer here would be “because importing shows is cheaper – duh!”, but Sky reportedly pay Buena Vista International a whopping £700,000 per episode of Lost. That’s comfortably enough to make an episode of a home-grown drama series. So, come on Sky, why don’t you?

Brr. It’s okay Rupe, we’ll walk home.

 

TOMORROW: Not sure. Maybe BBC Four.

(Editor’s note: Yes, it should technically have been James Murdoch in those pictures, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as unsettling as Captain Jowls up there.)

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Data Week: BBC Three (and Sexy Governors)

So, after not updating for a while, what better way could there be to return than with a big list of lovely numbers? (Readers voice: “Oh bloody hell.”)

We’ve been scouring the ever useful BARB website, and we’ve been looking into viewing figures for a number of channels over the past twelve months. To kick off, we’re going to take a look at BBC Three. And to make things even more exciting, we’re going to intersperse our findings with some historic cheesecake shots of the BBC Board Of Governors, like this one from 2001:

Phwoar, eh?

So, here’s what we’ve done. Working from the “weekly top ten” viewing figures from BARB’s website, we’ve compiled a listing of the 200 most watched shows on BBC Three over the last twelve months. Then, we’ve broken them down by show, to see which are the most popular programmes on the channel. We’ve even come up with a list of shows by type, to work out how many of BBC Three’s original shows are on there. Anyway, here’s the list in full, just after another shot of the BBC Board Of Governors. This time from 2002:

Mmm, ‘playful’. Here’s the list.

overall rank	show	viewers (000s)
1	Eastenders (12 July 2009)	1,907
2	Eastenders (05 April 2009)	1,795
3	Eastenders (12 April 2009)	1,782
4	Eastenders (19 April 2009)	1,643
5	Eastenders (05 April 2009)	1,580
6	Eastenders (28 December 2008)	1,568
7	Eastenders (18 January 2009)	1,555
8	Eastenders (24 May 2009)	1,533
9	Eastenders (07 June 2009)	1,495
10	Eastenders (31 May 2009)	1,495
11	Eastenders (04 January 2009)	1,476
12	Eastenders (15 February 2009)	1,458
13	Eastenders (19 July 2009)	1,456
14	Eastenders (29 March 2009)	1,453
15	Eastenders (11 January 2009)	1,442
16	Heroes (21 December 2008)	1,440
17	Eastenders (25 April 2009)	1,435
18	Eastenders (21 December 2008)	1,432
19	Eastenders (16 November 2008)	1,417
20	Eastenders (22 February 2009)	1,415
21	Eastenders (28 June 2009)	1,405
22	Eastenders (22 March 2009)	1,383
24	Horne & Corden (15 March 2009)	1,373
23	Eastenders (14 December 2008)	1,373
25	Film: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl (04 January 2009)	1,361
26	Eastenders (08 March 2009)	1,328
27	Eastenders (17 May 2009)	1,317
28	Heroes (16 November 2008)	1,310
29	Eastenders (05 July 2009)	1,305
30	Eastenders (08 February 2009)	1,305
31	Eastenders (25 January 2009)	1,290
32	Heroes (07 December 2008)	1,288
33	Film: Bruce Almighty (2003) (21 December 2008)	1,285
34	Eastenders (09 November 2008)	1,272
35	Eastenders (07 December 2008)	1,263
36	Heroes (19 October 2008)	1,259
37	Eastenders (30 August 2009)	1,250
38	Heroes (14 December 2008)	1,239
39	Film: War Of The Worlds (2005) (25 January 2009)	1,222
40	Eastenders (21 June 2009)	1,214
41	Spooks (30 November 2008)	1,213
42	Eastenders (14 June 2009)	1,207
43	Film: Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Cu (04 January 2009)	1,203
45	Heroes (12 October 2008)	1,200
44	Eastenders (12 October 2008)	1,200
46	Heroes (30 November 2008)	1,198
48	Heroes (23 November 2008)	1,193
47	Eastenders (23 November 2008)	1,193
49	Family Guy (19 July 2009)	1,192
50	Heroes (05 October 2008)	1,189
51	Eastenders (30 November 2008)	1,187
52	Eastenders (09 November 2008)	1,171
53	Eastenders (26 October 2008)	1,163
54	Eastenders (12 April 2009)	1,157
55	Heroes (09 November 2008)	1,152
56	Eastenders (13 September 2009)	1,145
57	Eastenders (06 September 2009)	1,144
58	Eastenders (16 August 2009)	1,142
59	Heroes (26 October 2008)	1,135
60	Eastenders (01 February 2009)	1,134
61	Eastenders (19 October 2008)	1,123
62	Eastenders (12 April 2009)	1,114
63	Eastenders (25 April 2009)	1,113
64	Match Of The Day Live (21 June 2009)	1,109
65	Heroes (02 November 2008)	1,108
66	Eastenders (14 June 2009)	1,106
67	Eastenders (05 October 2008)	1,102
68	Eastenders (01 March 2009)	1,101
69	Horne & Corden (22 March 2009)	1,096
70	Being Human (25 January 2009)	1,092
71	Match Of The Day Live (28 June 2009)	1,090
72	Eastenders (03 May 2009)	1,088
73	Eastenders (19 April 2009)	1,087
74	Being Human (01 March 2009)	1,086
75	Eastenders (05 April 2009)	1,076
76	Heroes (19 April 2009)	1,068
77	Heroes (01 March 2009)	1,063
78	Family Guy (19 April 2009)	1,059
79	Eastenders (05 July 2009)	1,049
80	Eastenders (02 November 2008)	1,046
82	Heroes (12 April 2009)	1,042
81	Eastenders (10 May 2009)	1,042
83	Eastenders (09 November 2008)	1,036
85	Heroes (03 May 2009)	1,030
84	Eastenders (17 May 2009)	1,030
87	Heroes (15 March 2009)	1,018
86	Eastenders (23 August 2009)	1,018
88	Match Of The Day Live (28 June 2009)	1,017
90	Heroes (08 March 2009)	1,016
89	Eastenders (31 May 2009)	1,016
91	Eastenders (03 May 2009)	1,015
92	Eastenders (09 August 2009)	1,013
93	Eastenders (19 July 2009)	1,011
95	Spooks (23 November 2008)	1,010
94	Eastenders (23 August 2009)	1,010
96	Film: Shrek (01 February 2009)	1,008
98	Heroes (25 April 2009)	998
97	Eastenders (29 March 2009)	998
99	Eastenders (24 May 2009)	988
100	Match Of The Day Live (28 June 2009)	987
101	Eastenders (28 June 2009)	984
102	Eastenders (14 December 2008)	983
103	Heroes (22 March 2009)	981
104	Eastenders (05 October 2008)	979
105	Horne & Corden (05 April 2009)	976
106	Being Human (01 February 2009)	974
107	Eastenders (01 March 2009)	972
108	Family Guy (31 May 2009)	971
109	Eastenders (11 January 2009)	966
110	Eastenders (05 April 2009)	962
111	Eastenders (03 May 2009)	961
112	Family Guy (19 April 2009)	959
113	Eastenders (19 July 2009)	955
115	Heroes (05 April 2009)	953
114	Eastenders (12 July 2009)	953
116	Family Guy (28 June 2009)	946
117	Eastenders (16 August 2009)	945
118	Heroes (29 March 2009)	942
119	Eastenders (05 July 2009)	941
120	Eastenders (21 June 2009)	936
121	Eastenders (19 April 2009)	935
122	Spooks (02 November 2008)	933
123	Film: National Treasure (2004) (06 September 2009)	932
124	Match Of The Day Live (28 June 2009)	929
125	Eastenders (28 June 2009)	925
126	Eastenders (10 May 2009)	925
127	Eastenders (22 March 2009)	924
129	Film: Meet The Fockers (2004) (12 April 2009)	923
128	Eastenders (13 September 2009)	923
130	Family Guy (19 April 2009)	921
131	Eastenders (07 June 2009)	917
132	Eastenders (17 May 2009)	916
133	Eastenders (22 February 2009)	915
134	Eastenders (30 August 2009)	914
135	Underage And Pregnant (02 August 2009)	913
137	Film: Bruce Almighty (2003) (28 December 2008)	912
138	Film: The Pacifier (2005) (26 July 2009)	912
136	Doctor Who (12 April 2009)	912
139	Film: Shrek (08 February 2009)	909
140	Eastenders (29 March 2009)	907
141	Eastenders (22 February 2009)	907
142	Family Guy (26 July 2009)	906
143	Match Of The Day Live (15 February 2009)	901
144	Eastenders (30 November 2008)	900
145	Blood, Sweat And T-Shirts (24 May 2009)	899
146	Family Guy (03 May 2009)	898
150	Family Guy (10 May 2009)	896
147	Eastenders (21 June 2009)	896
148	Eastenders (25 April 2009)	896
149	Eastenders (25 January 2009)	896
151	Family Guy (19 April 2009)	894
152	Eastenders (09 August 2009)	891
153	Family Guy (17 May 2009)	888
154	Horne & Corden (29 March 2009)	887
155	Eastenders (12 July 2009)	883
157	Film: Wallace Gromit In The Curse Of T (01 March 2009)	881
156	Eastenders (22 February 2009)	881
158	Eastenders (21 December 2008)	880
159	Eastenders (29 March 2009)	879
160	Eastenders (15 March 2009)	879
162	Film: War Of The Worlds (2005) (25 January 2009)	878
161	Family Guy (12 July 2009)	878
163	Eastenders (26 July 2009)	877
164	Eastenders (28 December 2008)	875
165	Eastenders (07 December 2008)	874
166	Family Guy (05 July 2009)	870
168	Family Guy (21 June 2009)	868
167	Eastenders (28 December 2008)	868
169	Eastenders (25 April 2009)	866
170	Eastenders (15 March 2009)	863
171	Eastenders (18 January 2009)	861
172	Gavin And Stacey (28 December 2008)	860
173	Eastenders (02 November 2008)	859
174	Eastenders (02 August 2009)	858
175	Match Of The Day Live (21 June 2009)	855
176	Eastenders (26 July 2009)	853
177	Eastenders (26 October 2008)	852
178	Torchwood: Children Of Earth (12 July 2009)	852
179	Eastenders (02 August 2009)	849
180	Eastenders (07 June 2009)	846
181	Film: Cool Runnings (28 December 2008)	845
182	Eastenders (04 January 2009)	844
183	Live At The Apollo (26 July 2009)	844
184	Eastenders (26 July 2009)	842
185	Eastenders (23 November 2008)	842
186	Eastenders (08 March 2009)	839
187	Eastenders (09 August 2009)	838
188	Eastenders (12 October 2008)	838
189	Eastenders (16 November 2008)	837
190	Eastenders (30 November 2008)	835
192	Family Guy (30 August 2009)	830
191	Comic Relief's Naughty Bits (08 March 2009)	830
193	Eastenders (24 May 2009)	829
194	Film: National Treasure (2004) (13 September 2009)	826
195	Eastenders (15 March 2009)	825
196	Eastenders (15 February 2009)	825
197	Eastenders (14 June 2009)	821
198	Eastenders (10 May 2009)	821
199	Eastenders (21 December 2008)	821
200	Spooks (09 November 2008)	820

 

Notice a bit of, well, running theme throughout that list? So, with those shows under consideration, here’s a breakdown of them:

As might be expected from the above list, 124 of BBC Three’s 200 most-watched shows over the last year involve the miserable residents of Walford, or 62%. And given EastEnders is often the most-watched show in any given week, how does the chart look when converted into total viewers? A total aggregate of viewers would be quite unfair, as EastEnders is on BBC Three about 150 times per year, so instead we’ll look at the averages:

So, quite interestingly, the ‘Stenders only fall into fourth spot on the list, with first-run Heroes and a couple of films in front of it. Godawful sketch show Horne & Corden makes a mark as top-rated BBC Three original production using this criteria, though it should be noted only the average viewing figure of the four H&C episodes making the top 200 are used here. The remainder of the series failed to make the cut (at least one broadcast not even making the BBC Three top ten for that week). Anyway, we’re boring ourselves now.

Ah, that’s better. The 2003 bunch and a sofa, there. So, breaking the list down by type of show, what sort of chart do we get then?

That’s right: an interesting chart. 64% of shows making up the top 200 had previously been shown on BBC One, with a further 2% being premiere episodes of Spooks, shown on BBC One the following week. Of the lot, just 5% of the top 200 shows were original commissions for BBC Three, ten broadcasts in total (namely four eps of Horne & Corden, three of Being Human, and one each of Blood, Sweat And T-Shirts, Gavin And Stacey, and Underage And Pregnant).

So, what have we learned from all this? Well, EastEnders and films are very popular. “Georgia's Story - 33 Stone At 15”, somewhat less so (it was the 446th most watched show, coincidentally). Nothing you couldn’t have easily guessed, admittedly, but we’re sticking with Data Week until the bitter end. You’ll see.

 

Tomorrow: Sky One.

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What IMDB Says, And What It Ought To Say

Who watches a Pixar film, and instead of being enthralled by the magic within, simply sits there taking mental notes of things that might not be 100% realistic? IMDB contributors, that’s who.

It’s a animated movie about an old man who FLIES HIS HOUSE. We don’t think it’s based on a true story, you guys.

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BrokenTV Movie Club: Special Bulletin (1983)

This is something quite special. Special Bulletin was a TV movie broadcast on NBC in 1983, depicting a threat from US-based intellectual-pacifist terrorist cell to detonate a nuke in a Charleston harbour. At this point you might be mentally composing a Photoshopped screen-grab plastered with the words PACIFISM FAIL, but bear with us. The twist is, all events are relayed through simulated live rolling news coverage from the fictional RBS Network. It's all put together very well, being shot on video as opposed to film in order to capture that newsy feel more accurately, and it even opens with a authentically 1983-ish promo for forthcoming shows being interrupted by a - hey! - special bulletin.

On the original broadcast, it was deemed realistic enough to warrant disclaimers after each commercial break reminding viewers that events aren't real, along with the occasional on-screen "Dramatization" caption, lest it kick off a huge War Of The Worlds-style panic. All we'll say is: we dipped into it out of curiosity, and ended up sticking engrossedly with it, right to the end. Why, at several points our traditionally cynical expressions melted away to make room for something approaching actual concern for the participants. Enjoy, and try not to let your suspension of disbelief drop as soon as you realise one of the terrorists is played by David "Sledge Hammer/Warmongering Senator From In The Loop" Rasche.

Oh, and try not to get distracted by the Washington correspondent who looks a bit like Dan Rather, but who isn't Dan Rather. While the whole thing is slightly deflated by a couple of aspects (one being the slightly histrionic performance of Kathryn Walker as co-anchor, the other we're not mentioning, but you'll spot it), it's otherwise a decidedly engrossing depiction of what such coverage possibly would have been like at the time. We could go on about it some more, but it's the sort of film where seeing events unfold without knowing too much in advance - and being able to make comparisons with how such events would be reported now - really adds to your enjoyment. Oh, and a quick nod to the splendid SOTCAA forum, which is where we read about it.

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So, Derren Brown’s Lottery Prediction Thing

So, Darren “Stop Calling Me Darren” Brown’s lottery prediction stunt passed over without a hitch – he actually did successfully predict the numbers before they were drawn. Well, something like that anyway. Luckily, because we’re astonishingly farsighted*, we recorded both the More4 and BBC One transmissions between 10.34pm and 10.41pm in our Topfield Freeview box’s picture-in-picture mode.

(*Well, because TV’s Steve Berry** tweeted a comment at us mentioning the idea at 10.29pm, leading to us scrabbling around like berks trying to remember how Super PiP works, but you get the gist.)

(** Are you famous? Unlikely, as you’re reading BrokenTV instead of eating a cocaine in That London, but anyway. If you are, why not contribute to Steve Berry’s charity Doctor Who book? Go on, it’s for a good cause.)

We’ve even uploaded it to YouTube. Here’s the video. Try to ignore the fact it isn’t in proper widescreen mode because our DVD recorder isn’t very good. In fact, we’re willing to be ‘sponsored’ by any companies willing to send us a free Blu-ray recorder.

So there it is (yes, we know there’s a “Config mode: ON” banner there). How did he do that, then, eh? Here are three of our potential explanations:

1) The far side of the balls were covered in an E-ink surface, which could be controlled remotely by a crew member. E-ink is a real thing, by the way, not something we’ve made up. However, while it’s relatively flexible, we’re not sure you can coast a ball with it like that.

2) Some kind of remote controlled Etch-a-sketch type pen inside each of the balls, again, remotely controlled by an unseen crew member. After all, we reckon the first time Etch-a-sketch was unveiled it would have been regarded as tantamount to witchcraft.

3) Brown had simply used an invisible man, or possibly a ghost, to hide inside the draw machine on the Lottery Draw set, and simply place the designated balls inside the tube at the correct moment. The simplest explanations are often the right ones.

Frippery aside, there’s some clever misdirection from the mouth of Brown on tonight’s live feature. The mentioned legal reasons for not screening more than a snippet of the live BBC One show on Channel Four was surely true enough, but his claim that “after a meeting with Camelot […] I can’t show you the numbers until just after the result of the draw has been announced” is likely to be misdirection - he could easily have countered "What? I'm just stating my prediction of the numbers, you're the ones announcing them? I'm not even going to claim I'll get all six correct". His claim that “we don’t know exactly what time the draw will be shown on BBC One, we just hope it’s while this ten minute show is live” is certainly misdirection, as the timing of the lottery draw is assuredly fixed (apart from during exceptional circumstances – if a huge breaking story had kicked off at 10.20pm things would have been derailed) – especially as the Thunderball draw was going on at the exact moment Brown was saying those words. He even says “we are hoping it will happen at some point in the next ten minutes” as the Thunderball draw is finishing.

Also, he states that “tonight, I’m going to try and predict at least five of the six lottery numbers”. Clearly, the chances of doing so are still as close to astronomical as dammit given the surrounding hype, but then that’s merely akin to an old car salesman’s trick of saying “is that more than you’d hoped to spend?”, with the aim of Johnny Carbuyer feeling compelled to prove he does have that extra few hundred quid to splurge on a motor after all, thank you very-bloody-much. In this case, Brown slightly lowers the bar for success, knowing that when he clears it comfortably after all, his feat seems more impressive.

You’ll note his repeated claims (both in recent press for the show, and in the show itself) that it had taken him “a year or preparation” for the live Lotto stunt. If that really were the case, and if the “prediction was made earlier on today” (as he claims), why weren’t the numbers displayed as a great big fuck-off painted mural on brickwork behind a silk curtain, instead of “on some ping-pong balls”? Because, quite clearly, the numbers were added to the balls after the draw was made.

All that said, it’s still great to see things like this going on. We especially like the way Brown makes out he’s so excited and uncertain about the events as they unfold, as if it were the first time he’s done something like this. It’ll be interesting the ‘reveal’ on Friday, just as long as he doesn’t go along the made-up “well, I felt that we were due to get number 39, because I’m magic” route. By definition, all “TV magic” is merely distraction and/or illusion, but for everyone over the age of ten, the fun really comes from working out how the frigging chuff they actually did the thing they’ve just done. On Friday night, hopefully, we shall see.

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First Of The Summer Skins, Plus A Lottery Prediction Prediction

In precisely the kind of channel-hopping stunt that we absolutely love, Darren “No, I Think You’ll Find It’s Derren” Brown is going to appear simultaneously on Channel Four, Film4, E4, More4, 4Music and 4-Tel (one of those is a lie) at 10.30pm on Wednesday (or, by the time you read this, tonight). But wait, that’s not the remarkable thing (even though it is kind of remarkable). When he’s live on air he has vowed to predict the numbers of the Midweek Lottery draw, broadcast live on BBC One five minutes later. So, guessing (sorry, predicting) which six numbers will be drawn, before they’re drawn. 

Of course, his predictions will be made after the tickets stop going on sale, no doubt to the annoyance of thousands of viewers hovering over the National Lottery website at 10.33pm that night. Anyway, it’s all going to be some kind of clever jape involving the words “I’ve written down the six numbers, and put them in this sealed envelope - tune in after the Lotto draw to see me open it”, and 13,999,999 spare envelopes hidden in crafty places around the set. Or he’ll hypnotise the nation at 10.40pm into thinking he’d got it right. Or maybe, Derren Brown will use a method such as this: at 10.30pm, flash up the following image for a split second:

Then show the image again at about 10.40pm, only this time with all of the wrong digits subtly dimmed by 20%, giving the impression the winning numbers were clearly visible all along. That’d fool us into assuming it was just our cold, closed minds that had prevented us from ‘getting’ it.

Anyway, whatever happens, we’ll be watching it. Much as we will be and have been watching Land Girls on BBC One (also on BBC HD). The trailer managed to confuse us on Sunday night, with what seemed to be a relatively expensive WWII period drama being shown at the surely-it-must-be-a-Bank-Holiday time of 5.15pm, but no, that’s the timeslot for it. And in our defence, we’d spent around 80% of Sunday in bed drowning in a sea of the most devilishly feverish visions – the concept of cricket or toast would probably have had us similarly floundered by the time we finally made it to the sofa. It’s on every weekday this, er, week at that time, suggesting it’s geared towards elder children.

Not a bit of it. Episode two alone featured 1940s teenage pregnancy and subsequent attempted abortion, a nine-year-old boy selling bootleg whiskey, arguments aplenty, a bar brawl, thwarted equestricide, and three cast members from the magnificent Early Doors to boot. All in the traditional Blue Peter slot.

Despite us just making it sound like First Of The Summer Skins, or BBC Three’s Fuck Off I’m A Civilian Landworker, it’s all handled as sensibly as if it had been filtered through the typewriter ribbons of Michael O’Neill and Jeremy Seabrook. All the characters you’d expect to find in a classic BBC children’s drama are there:

The plucky teenage girl who’d lied about her age in order to help with the war effort, spunky and idealistic, and who’d think nothing of marching into the American soldiers’ mess to demand they improve the lot of their black compatriots.

Her steadying influence of an older sister (Christine Bottomley, below left), ready to pluckily corner any American GIs who’d try to take advantage of her young sis, and prod their chests so hard their medals will leave indentations in their ribcage.

A plucky pre-teen scallywag happy to aid the scam-hungry farmer (Mark Benton) with some wizard carrot-related wheezes.

A nosey parker Sergeant willing to spend as much time peeking into the business of his own men as carrying out his duties. If this were being made in 1983, he’d be played by Stephen Lewis.

The Lord Of The Manor – a well-meaning war hero who is always on hand with a word of cheery encouragement or some first-aid tips gleaned from his time in the Somme

The deceitful Lady Of The Manor, on hand to pass on the valuable lesson to children that at least 50% of posh people throughout history were evil (legal note: may not be true).

The perpetually cheery (and plucky) midlands girl who refuses to dwell on the hand life has dealt her, lest it cause her to waver from her land-tending duties.

The superficially plucky land girl who is probably Up To No Good, We’ll Wager.

And at least half a dozen more characters more interesting and well-rounded that you’d find in a great deal of post-watershed dramas. We’re happy to make that judgement call after seeing just one-and-a-half episodes, and recommend everyone visit the Land Girls iPlayer page to dip into it. Go on, do it now.

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