A Very British Twenty-Four

It's October, which means it must be about time for BrokenTV's biannual stab at liking Spooks. We generally give this a go every other year, suspecting our natural aversion to anything being endlessly promoted by the BBC is blinding us to its charms. After all, Life On Mars was 'done' by the people who brought us Spooks, and it's endlessly portraying itself as a turbocharged amalgam of James Bond, 24 and The State Within (which was good, no matter what anyone else says).

Every year, we settle down in our special Watching Telly Chair, and every year we sit through at least two whole episodes. Every year, we walk away cursing ourselves for not remembering that the show is always too busy juggling so-called-'believable' plotlines (except they're not really), tedious exposition and characters trying to act achingly cool (in a very manufactured BBC One Drama Programme in 2007 kind of not really very cool kind of way, like in Hustle).

So, this year's findings? With the same sense of inevitability, it's still as much as a tedium-fest as ever, although this time it seems to be trying harder than ever to 'be' 24.

It's got slidey split screen inter-scene segments showing what the central characters are up to at any given time. It's got conspicuously inconspicuous agents in railway stations talking to their 'control room' via hidden microphones. It's got a bit where the viewers are expected to go "oh noes! A government insider is in on the whole thing! Erm, just like last time." It's got a large room full of people tapping at expensive computer keyboards and saying things like "Can you clean up those five pixels on that grainy mobile phone video footage into something more useful, like a gas bill with the full name and address of the terrorists on it?". All led by Unconventional Boss Woman Who Doesn't Dress Like Anyone Else, Because She's Unconventional Boss Woman, Of Course. And, in a very BBC One Drama Programme in 2007 kind of way, when something slightly surprising happens, the camera zooms in annoyingly on someone's astonished face, just to hammer that point home to everyone at home, in case they'd got confused.

The problem is, the last series of 24 had Jack killing his own brother as a result of an interrogation, a former president being killed by his screaming estranged wife, the current president being blown up and put into a coma (for a bit), and A NUCLEAR BOMB GOING OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF LA, and it was still the least impressive series of 24 so far. Spooks cops out of spending any money on the pivotal huge explosion scene by portraying it purely via the medium of several close ups, a window smashing, and a lo-res satellite imaging feed of the explosion.

We could have knocked that up in Deluxe Paint III.

Although it did have a terrorist who looked like he was going to blow up everyone, but it turned out he was cuddly after all, which is quite like the last series of 24. But then, at least 24 had the foresight to cast the part to an actor who looks like an arabic Wayne Coyne. Oh, and the exact same 'virulent massively toxic chemicals released in a huge city' plot as 24: Day 3. "We have two hours!" Really? Maybe you should have a ticking clock on-screen every few minutes, so we know how we're doing for time. Well, in place of that, we've got a running tally of "UK Infections", updated every time something happens. Not quite as good.

In place of CTU running around large crowded cities trying to stop nuclear explosions going off, we've got running around in forests. Well, have you seen the rates extras are expecting these days? Mind you, what Spooks lacks in proper explosions and Jack Bauery excellence, it makes up for in traditional British Gurning.

Top to bottom:
"I am concerned, this is my concerned face."
"I am concerned, this is my concerned face."
"I am shocked, this is my shocked face."

The close-ups on a computer screen every time someone needs to point at something on one is also worthy of comment. Instead of what in reality would be a gray and blue Windows screen with any picture or video on display contained purely within a plain oblong, with nothing more fancy than a faux-embossed three pixel border, every TFT monitor in Spooksland has to contain eighteen impossibly small perma-scrolling text frames, moving transparent green bars over the top of any pictures and transition effects whenever anything at all updates. Well, if you can't afford to make it look like James Bond in any other sense, why not crowbar in a garish desktop PC interface that might look quite good in the trailers, eh?

And what happens when someone transfers money over an internet bank account? Does it say "Click submit to confirm your transaction" then "done"? Oh-ho-ho-no! A red progress bar moves slowly accross the screen, as if it were downloading a file, of course.

Remind us never to move our account to Harcross Banking. They can't even spell
"transferring" correctly. Anyway, all ransom money should be sent to terrorists via Paypal.

It's the Torchwood van fisco all over again. Except at least Torchwood was supposed to be a bit of daft escapist fun for Doctor Who fans who like swearing, not the challenging and thrilling BBC One drama meant to ROCK the MINDSETS of the viewing millions that Spooks thinks it is.

24?

24p, more like.

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New Target Audience For Ringtone 'Club' Scam Overlords

Now they're after Red Dwarf fans.

Red Dwarf is to return – but as an animated series for mobile phones.

Entertainement company Pitch has created cartoon clips to match audio footage from the original BBC Two series, for which subscribers will pay £3 a week.

That's £3 per week, or more accurately £12 per month. To put that into perspective, you can now pick up the DVD of each series of Red Dwarf for £6.99 from Virgin Megastores. So: for the price of two-and-a-bit video clips of animations of Red Dwarf scenes, you could get an entire series, on high quality DVD, which includes three hours of "clips" (i.e. entire episodes), along with tonnes of extras.

"But!", you may cry whilst idly brushing Pringle crumbs from your I Say Let's Get Out There And Twat It T-shirt, "as somebody who is part of the likely target audience for this mobile enterprise, I've already got the DVDs. What do you say to that, you idiots?"

Okay, cracking open the seal on our Christmas catalogue from Littlewoods (who we'd only signed up with because their 20% off your first order deal meant we could buy a cheap Xbox Live membership), here is a quick list of:

Other Things You Could Buy That Cost The Same Each Month As Some Rubbish Red Dwarf Animated Clips.

• A Bart Simpson folding double door 32-inch LCD Television set (£10.66 per month)
• A Samsung DVD camcorder (£10.87 per month)
• A Nintendo Wii (£8.48 per month)
• A new 80gb iPod Classic (£10.19 per month)
• A 15.4" Goodmans HD Ready LCD TV and DVD combo with built-in Freeview (£11.47 per month)

(Before anyone writes in to say it, we know catalogue prices are artificially inflated and it's worth just going online if you want to buy stuff, but that just highlights the stupid price they're asking for some animated video clips of a programme you'll already own on DVD if you're that bothered about it. And that's not even starting on the prospect of anyone who 'needs' to carry some Red Dwarf clips around with them at all times, for some ungodly reason.)

To put it into even more simple terms, here's a graphical representation of the things you could buy for equal to or less than the amount you'd pay for some Red Dwarf mobile phone clips every month:

Of course, for the sake of humanity as a whole, we're hoping these mobile clips turn out to be a massive failure. Given that the stereotypical image of your average Red Dwarf fan is that of a geek, and given that geeks are supposed to be clever and good at maths, there should be no conceivable way this can succeed. Surely.

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"They've Rebadged It, You Fool" and "The Scientist Replies"

You’ll have to excuse the lack of updates of late, but BrokenTV is now back in college. It’s a lot less like Animal House than we’d anticipated, but we can’t pull out now, or we’ll have to give our employers their £1500 back. This, coupled with our six-day-a-week full time job and ever-present endemic laziness, have unfortunately prevented us from watching much telly worth writing about.

One of the greatest injustices we’ve faced in our course was the way the marketing tutor had originally given us a distinction on a piece of coursework, only to cross that out and downgrade it to a merit. He didn’t even try and hide this from us by using Tipp-Ex, he just put a line through it. Now, we’re not especially bitter about that (no matter what anyone says about that stuff we wrote on his car), but we feel compelled to prove to the reading dozens just how that was completely wrong, and how we’re actually marketing geniuses of the very highest calibre. And all without having to take copious amounts of cocaine, too. We can literally come up with marketing campaigns in our sleep.

During a fitful night’s sleep, we’ve just had a dream. In this dream, we were watching Virgin One (the newly rebadged FTN that we haven’t actually watched yet). At the end of a programme, an ad bumper appeared. The programme was being sponsored by Scottish Widows, and as such the break bumpers featured the company’s Scottish widow. You know the one, a young attractive woman clad in billowy black silk. Not only is she one strip of cloth away from looking like a ninja, but she seems to smile quite often. Far be it from us to cast aspersions, but she doesn’t seem that bothered about being a widow. We’re not necessarily saying she’s poisoned her elderly husband just to get her hands on his large personal fortune, but we’re sure she wouldn’t be quite so cocky if Columbo got involved in the inquest, that’s all.

As you may have noticed, there are pretty much two distinct types of ad bumper. Type one is where the advertiser tries to act all chummy and witty, and get the viewer on-side, such as the woeful Nintendo bumpers for Channel Four’s comedy output (“That’s my boy.” “That’s what you think.” Oh, shit off), or the interminable VC Poker playing cops that crop up on every other digital channel. Type two is the mercifully short bumper that knows you don’t want to like it, so it just mentions a product of company then pisses off, such as the adverts for Hyundi that you see during Dexter on FX (“Hyundi. We exist. Here’s your programme”, basically). The bumpers in our dream were the second type, as advertising ‘creatives’ who come up with deliberately annoying campaigns badly need to be killed with hammers. Killed with hammers while meekly yelping the words “but annoying campaigns stick in the mind more easily so people remember the name of the… gagh”.

Bumper one.

Close up on a pair of white mice in a shoe box. One of them is in a right old state, barely able to move, struggling to drag its dying body around the box. By comparison, Mouse Two is gambolling around the box with gay mousy abandon, just so that the audience can make a clear distinction between Well Mouse and Nearly Dead Mouse. Pan out to reveal a 1950s schoolboy (grey uniform, school cap, no flickknife) holding the box looking distraught. Pan out further to reveal the Scottish Widows Scottish widow has her hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner, and is also looking into the box with a concerned impression on her face. As the sound of a gentle piano sting plays in the background, a caption politely fades onto the screen: Scottish Widows Life Insurance.

Bumper two.

Close up on the same shoe box. The poorly mouse has now passed away, its lifeless body being nudged around the box slowly by its curious former boxmate, who is quite clearly oblivious to the concept of death. Pan out to reveal a crying 1950s schoolboy. Pan out further to reveal the Scottish Widows Scottish widow is trying to comfort the boy, her look seeming to suggest that she understands what he is going through, or possibly an expression which suggests “hey, don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this one”. This time, the soundtrack is silent, like the clock at the end of the first series of 24, and the caption merely states: Undertakers. Now, we realise that Scottish Widows wouldn’t need to mention anything to do with undertakers, but it was a dream. Dreams don’t always make sense, you know. Anyway, if these bumpers were going to be used somewhere, they could always make them for Yellow Pages instead. It could just as easily be James Nesbitt in the widow outfit hugging the child.

But that’s enough of our moderately unsettling dreams. One thing we’ve just discovered about being a student is that we’ve automatically been given access to lots of academic websites from all over the country. One of these is Bournemouth University’s TVTiP site, and is quite wonderfully a searchable database of the TV Times from 1955 to 1985. Sadly, there are no full scans on offer, save for a few tiny images of covers, but all text is fully searchable and the site is very quick to use. You can even browse the listings by day, and there’s even the option to export a whole monthly schedule to a text file.

Using the database, here are just a few of the offerings made to viewers of the Light Network during its very first fortnight on air.

Friday 23 Sep 1955, 12:10 (5 mins)
Friday's Man

Every week at this time you have an appointment with an attractive personality who will entertain you.

Friday 23 Sep 1955, 19:20 (10 mins)
Friday's Girl

In this unsophisticated, informal programme Sheila Mathews will sing three songs of varying types - bright, point, and ballad - accompanied by an ensemble of piano, bass, drum, vibraphone, electric guitar and clarinet.

Performers: Sheila Mathews, Malcolm Lockyer and his Music

[Note: The following week this was rebranded under the excellent moniker “Melody Maid”. What’s not to like? And you’ve got to admire any programme which proudly declares itself as ‘unsophisticated’. Jeremy Kyle ought to take note.]

Saturday 24 Sep 1955, 19:45 (30 mins)
Colonel March (Episode 1. Passage at Arms)

A complete half-hour mystery story featuring Colonel March of Scotland Yard, Head of the Department of Queer Complaints. A wealthy widow named Martha is murdered - and the suspects include members of the English and French teams taking part in an international fencing tournament. The climax comes in a bout between a young artist and his English friend - with Colonel March of Scotland Yard as referee.

Monday 26 Sep 1955, 12:10 (5 mins)
It's An Idea

Each week someone will tell you about a useful idea that they have had and demonstrate how to carry it out. This week Jeanne Kent shows, in the simplest way, how to make a lampshade.

Monday 26 Sep 1955, 22:20 (30 mins)
The Scientist Replies

Why do men go bald? Will there ever be a three minute mile? Will atomic power ever provide economical electrical energy? These are just some of the questions to which the scientists on this programme will have to reply during the series. Viewers wishing to find the answer to a scientific problem are invited to submit questions.

Tuesday 27 Sep 1955, 11:10 (5 mins)
Are Husbands Really Necessary

John Blythe thinks they are, but his wife has her doubts.

Wednesday 28 Sep 1955, 17:00 (15 mins)
Rumpus Point

A weekly programme featuring Keith Smith and Alan Maxwell in a quarter of an hour of slapstick fun.

Wednesday 28 Sep 1955, 20:30 (60 mins)
Cavalcade of Sport

A weekly series which will feature professional tennis, Association and Rugby football and other national sports. We begin with a salute to the leading personalities in the sporting world, gathered in the studio for the first in the "Cavalcade of Sport" series. Our cameras then go to Woolwich Stadium to watch the second half of the Rugby League match between Wigan and Huddersfield, first of a series of games for the Rugby League Television Trophy presented by Associated Rediffusion.

Saturday 1 Oct 1955, 20:15 (45 mins)
Saturday Showtime

There is only one thing that can be said with certainty about this "Goon" programme - Harry Secombe - there he is on the right - will be there to introduce a series of artistes who will compete with him in "Goonery". And "Goonery" is a word already being added to the English dictionary. It means the art of introducing the unexpected. Look in at 8.15 and expect the unexpected.

Monday 3 Oct 1955, 12:15 (15 mins)
Small Time

A special programme for the under-fives. Rolf Harris tells a story with pictures and invites his young audience to help him in drawing the pictures with their "big black crayons" and enormous pieces of paper. Jean Ford tells her own stories.

[Rolf Harris! He must have been about six years old at the time. Cripes.]

Tuesday 4 Oct 1955, 12:10 (20 mins)
5th National Fabric Fair

Today the remote cameras go to the Royal Albert Hall, London, where Margot Lovell will be examining and showing some of the new fabrics which will be in the shops in the Spring. These beautiful fabrics are eagerly awaited by the world's leading fashion buyers. In the hands of the experts this material will grace the world's best-dressed women.

Now, despite all of you probably still sniggering up your sleeves at the thought of there being a Department of Queer Complaints, there’s one thing those programmes pretty much have in common. National Fabric Fairs aside, we’re saying there’s a large possibility we’d be tuning in to see the majority of those programmes at least once, if only for curiosity value. Compare that to the ITV1 of 2007, where there isn’t even a Cavalcade of anything, and pretty much no children’s television at all, much less ones that have the word Rumpus in the title. It’s all very easy to snort derisively at being told how to make a lampshade, but come on. What’s really preferable? Rounding off the broadcast day with “And so to Bed”, where "Kay Cavendish gives you glimpses of tomorrow's programmes and bids you goodnight", or ITV Play trying to trick slow-witted people out of their child allowance?

1955 WINS.

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The Lacklustre Video Show: Part One

If you're anything like BrokenTV, you'll have an unhealthy addiction to a lot of things. Cockspur rum, cheese and ham flavour Hot Pockets, referring to yourself in the third person, rubbing our 'special purpose' endlessly when in polite company and heroin (only joking about that last one, Mum). But by far the worst of our habits is being utterly incapable of not buying any DVDs we see on offer at under four pounds. Sometimes, they're an unmissable barg (The Flaming Lips: VOID, The Goodies LWT Shows, Tatu: Screaming for More, Straw Dogs, the entire Laurel and Hardy collection, Amazon Women On The Moon). Sometimes, they're offerings worth it just for esoteric value (Terry Wogan: One on One, Morecambe and Wise At The Movies). Well worth the effort, we're sure you agree.

Better than heroin on toast.

Most frequently, they're things that we know we're going to hate (or already hate), but we can't help ourselves because they cost less than four of the shiny objects in our pocket. Our DVD shelves contain offerings such as Alien vs Predator, Blue Streak, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Die Another Day, Extras, Forrest Gump, God of Gamblers, Happy Gilmour, I-Spy, Jam, King Kong, Lucky Number Slevin, Men In Black 2, Natural Born Killers, Outbreak, Passenger 57, Rush Hour, Spider-Man, Terminator Woman, U-571, Wedding Crashers, and X-Men. And that's just cherry-picking one clunker for each letter of the alphabet. And it means we're tempted to go out and buy some crap films beginning with the letters Q, V, Y and Z just to complete that set now. Gah. And it gets worse, there are at least a couple of items on that list which we own two copies of - the thought process in Tesco generally being "Hey, it's only three quid. I'm sure we haven't already got it, it wouldn't have been worth paying more than three pounds for. We'll buy it", without realised that we'd said exactly the same to ourselves about three weeks previously in Woolies. That's what rum, Hot Pockets and heroin do to the brain, we suppose.

In the first of an irregular series, we're going to take a look at some of the especially disappointing collections we wouldn't have spent more than a fiver on.


The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons

Coming in a splendidly packaged three-disc boxset, this compilation of the finest episodes from a chat show host we'd never heard of, including musical performances from lots of artists we'd never heard of (Tex Ritter or The Jessy Dixon Singers, anyone?), made us hope it'd be right up there with all the bits we've seen of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In actual fact, it's all quite uninspiring stuff, with the only bit our brains have even bothered to recall were where the host got a bit annoyed with the neckercheif his producers had told him to wear in order to appear 'hip', and duly chucked it away on air. Hardly up there with Johnny Carson teaming up with James Randi to expose Uri Geller as the great big fat charlatan [citation needed] he really is. Probably that's why it was only a fiver.

Wikipedia does reveal that there are other Dick Cavett DVD collections that sounds a lot more promising, such as the Comic Legends four-disc set which includes interviews with Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Groucho Marx and The Smothers Brothers. We're guessing we're a lot less likely to pick that up in any sale soon.

In defence of Dick Cavett, at least one of his shows is available on the internet in its entirety and further in his defence, at least he's not as bad as bloody Dave "Dave" Letterman.



Domino (2005)

Bah and gah. We saw this ages ago, and disliked it immensely. It does have an interesting premise based on real events - Domino Harvey eschews her privileged background to become a bounty hunter. Plus, Terry Wogan is in it, how could it possibly be anything less than excellent? Unfortunately, as it's directed by Tony Scott, the whole thing is shot as if it were an advert for Pepsi Max, making the whole movie seem like a massive eye-buggering chore. Two out of ten.

And yet! When we saw it in Asda for £3, we somehow accidentally bought it. This sort of thing probably explains why small children often point and laugh at our stupid faces in the street.

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Let The Rugby Commence

"Hurrah! Another try for Whimsby Harriers!"

It's the Rugby World Cup again. A sport that has a number of redeeming characteristics when compared to the sport a ruggerloving colleague of BrokenTV's Mark X constantly refers to as 'poof-ball'. Players who don't squabble like girls every time a line-out/throw-in doesn't go their way, who don't crowd and whine around the referee like dicks for every decision that doesn't go their way, officials who are willing to use instant video replays for decisions that will have a notable impact at what is after all, the highest level of their chosen sport. It's just a pity the actual sport isn't anywhere near as good as football, really. But anyway, what of the TV coverage? Maybe we should compile a Rugby World Cup 2007 TV Coverage FAQ.

BrokenTV's Rugby World Cup 2007 TV Coverage FAQ

* Has Gabriel Clarke really missed out on his true vocation in life: playing the slightly smug posh bloke who steals the central character's girlfriend at the beginning of movies (in a scene which contains the line "he's more of a man than you'll ever be"), only to lose out after a stunning act of redemption by the central character in the last five minutes? YES HE HAS.

* Will ITV make everyone sit through the opening ceremony on full and tedious detail, with a commentator dutifully reading out a press release about how the dancing people in lycra are now representing the story of The Prince of the Seven Golden Cows? MERCIFULLY NOT.

* Are ITV about to fall into their usual trap of trying cling onto a few extra viewers by trying to make out that England are definitely going to win the large sporting event? PENDING ANSWER.

* Will they plaster the phrase "Exclusively on ITV" onto every caption that they possibly can? YES THEY WILL.

* Will ITV try to claim that the Rugby World Cup is "the world's third biggest sporting event" at every opportunity this time around, even though it really, really isn't? WE DON'T THINK SO, BUT WE MISSED THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THEIR COVERAGE.

* Why have Volkswagen changed their 'midlife crisis' advert so that the bit where the car shown outside the office is now in a different setting, and the tubby Scouser now says "is that your Passat?" instead of "is that your car?" WE DON'T KNOW, BUT IT DOES REAFFIRM OUR OPINION ON ADVERTISING AGENCIES.

* Will BrokenTV suddenly lose all interest in the Rugby World Cup once Wales contrive to balls up their opening match against Canada? YES.

* In fact, is BrokenTV not really that bothered about rugby after all, and that its favourite thing about any Rugby World Cup is the way the 1999 tournament meant loads of road signs in Wrexham had to be translated into Japanese and Samoan? GETTING TO BRIEFLY LIVE IN A TOWN WHERE THE ROAD SIGNS ARE IN JAPANESE, WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT THAT?

* Is that why you've lazily restricted the blog's coverage of the event to a simple question and answer format, so you don't get rumbled for not understanding why the referees always seem to give away penalties when as far as you can tell, nothing at all has happened? NOT AT ALL. OOH, THAT WAS A QUALITY SCRIMMAGE BY THE ALL-CYANS, THERE. WHICH ONES ARE BRAZIL, AGAIN?

"I say, Sebastian. I must disagree with that last tackle."

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Eliana's Brazilian Big Night, and Those Big Brother Results

So, who won our Big Brother Fame-O-meter, then? Why, the excellent Brian of course. See?



A late surge from Brian helped him take the prize, picking up bonus multipliers for winning the series (25%), being our favourite (10%), having his own Wikipedia page (another 25%). Having his own page also helped Jonathan take a somewhat unlikely second place, just in front of the excellent twins. Sam and Amanda finishing joint second in Friday's final sees them gain a 15% boost, and the extra 10% for being our joint favourite with Brian sees them knock Charley unceremoniously into fifth place. Ha ha.

So, what have we learned over this series of Big Brother, the first 'normal' series of BB we've bothered with since the first one? Well, trying to wade into it pouring scorn on all the contestants for little or no reason is the act of a cad (or a slightly longer word beginning with 'C'), as a glance at the Sunday Mirror's TV review section (or BrokenTV's intro to BB2007) will attest. If you're going to take the piss out of Big Brother and you're not Sean Lock, just don't bother. You'll look bad.

The other thing we've learned from BB2007: it goes on way too long. And it really doesn't provide a lot of comic potential once you've made a concious decision not to simply slag off everyone involved. Which is why we haven't got anything remotely amusing to say about it here.

SPECIAL FEATURE!
SECRET TELEVISION: Part One - Massive Picture Special

But that's enough about Big Brother, because we've got a new favourite programme ever. Lurking in the Sky EPG stratosphere is a delightfully deranged Brazilian channel called Record TV (Channel 801). Generally, their output seems to consist of incomprehensible local news reports, variety shows hosted by a moustachioed man in a neck brace, telenovellas where absolutely nothing happens, and shows like 'Tudo é Possível'.

Now admittedly, we don't speak word uno of Portuguese, so we're not best qualified to judge, but luckily that's never stopped us spewing forth our judgement before now. Running on Sunday afternoons from 4pm until 8.30pm - yes, you read that right - the Sky infobox describes Tudo é Possível as "Eliana hosts a programme with lots of stuff and curiosity". Anyone able to resist the promise of a show containing over four hours of stuff and curiosity can only have a heart of stone. For the benefit of our listeners and the non-Portuguese-speaking population of Earth, here's a synopsis of what happened from the point we tuned into the show (at about 6pm, just after the football, the sport that we still haven't got to starting our blog about yet).

As we crash into the broadcast, there seems to be some sort of quiz going on. As far as we can understand, here's what happens. Two contestants each stand in their own perspex booth and answer questions. But! For each question they answer correctly, they are charged with the task of inviting another person, dressed in a ludicrous outfit, into their booth. Outfits seem to include but are not limited to: Giant frogs; men dressed as tomatoes; a ringmaster on stilts; a fat naked man in a barrel; an Egyptian mummy; a ballet dancer. As each new person is introduced to the stage, Johnny (or Jemima) Contestant has one minute to cram everyone into the confines of their booth o' fun. If they manage to do so, they are allowed to continue. If they fail, they LOSE AN ARM. Actually, we're making that bit up, because we didn't see anyone fail.

In tonight's show, it was Male Contestant who was best able to cram everything into his ker-azy cubicle, and so he goes on to the main event. As you can see by looking at the following pictures with your eyes.

But what of Female Contestant? What happens to her? SHE IS INTRODUCED TO A SLIGHTLY SINISTER JESTER.

Nooooooo! Oh, hang on. He is juggling some balls (as is the way of the harlequin). They seem to contain prizes. He wants Female Contestant to pick one of them. Or else.

Brr. It's like an unsettling combination of Golden Balls and Stephen King's It. Female Contestant picks a ball (not pictured here), and so lovely host Eliana shows the world what's in the balls she didn't pick. Hey, they've got over four hours to kill.

This is what she didn't win. Which is lucky, as Escolna Outra Bolinna is rubbish. We imagine. Babelfish tells the prize translates into English as... "Escolna Another Bolinna". Thanks, Babelfish.

This is what she did win. 1000 Brazilian Reals. A quick visit to xe.com tells us that the prize is worth £252.26. Boo, cheapskates! The tomato suit probably cost twice that.

Now it's onto some sort of pre-recorded outdoor thing. There are clips of a Radio One Roadshow-type event, which are displayed alongside lots of product placement. This is then followed by clips of various activities such as children playing, old people in a hall, and a dentist performing surgery on a woman. We hope those aren't the prizes. Suddenly, £252.26 doesn't sound so bad after all. You can probably get an Xbox 360 Elite and a copy of Bioshock for that in Brazil.

Ah, no. Here come the prizes. A television. A cooker. And a microwave. And, depending on what the caption means, R$5000 on top of that, or not.

To win, he needs to... well, we're not sure. Now all of the fancy dress people are lined up, wearing numbers, as if they're about to have a race around the TV studio, which would be ACE. That's the sort of thing that should happen in Television Centre every Saturday night. They could have lottery numbers stuck to their front or something. But now Lovely Eliana is holding up two envelopes, which mean... something. Not sure what.

Before Male Contestant gets to choose, we're shown a bit of his home life. A bit like they used to do on Families At War, except it's not Vic and Bob cavorting around someone's residence. Ah, Families At War, another show that ought to be on iPlayer. Sigh.

We're back in the studio, and he's picked an envelope. He doesn't want to change it. But before we get to see the outcome, it's MC Sapao, who does a nice rap for the ladies and gentlemen.

Top Tip: If you're trying a portray yourself as a bit of a gangsta, try not to be pictured performing in front of an identity line-up comprising of giant frogs, Frankenstein's monsters and bestilted ringmasters. It tends to dampen your impact somewhat. There's a reason Ghostface Killah never appeared on Doobie Duck's Disco Bus.

Now, back to the envelopes. After a metric ton of faffing around (over four hours, remember), it is opened. And it contains...

"Sem colher de cha". Or, "Without spoon of cha". Thanks again, Babelfish. All a bit of a comedown after all that. Instead he gets to pick a person in a costume, who he may possibly have to marry as some kind of consolation prize. Luckily for him then, that he picks the beauty queen.

But alack! Lovely Eliana has gone over to Male Contestant's girlfriend in the audience, and has asked her to pick a potential life-mate for him instead. Sensing a chance for revenge, she picks the berk dressed as a tree. Now, surely Male Contestant won't decide to marry...

Oh. Behind the numbers is a prize. He gets to pick one prize. Aah. He picks the tree. After much (more) fannying around, the prize is revealed.

It is a microwave. He doesn't look elated. He decides to gamble on the beauty queen. After another dose of fannying around, her prize is revealed to be...

a black dot. We don't need to be a polyglot to understand that this means he's won piss all. The beauty queen seems quite pleased by that, for some reason. It transpires that the lady frog contained the big money. Forlorn, Male Contestant walks away. All that took up forty-five minutes of his life. But at least he hadn't made a misguided decision to transcribe it all in minute detail, like us. That takes much longer. Of course, if he'd ever entered one of those 'pick the football team' charity raffle card things you get in pubs occasionally, he'd have known the prize is never under the most popular choice. The beauty queen is clearly Liverpool or Manchester United, whereas the female frog is the Tudo é Possível equivalent of Airdrie or Crewe. It's a no-brainer.

From the quiz segment, we move onto a dubbed clip from 'Breaking The Magicians Code' (or, 'A Volta Do Magico Dos Magicos'). The action split-screens back to the Tudo é Possível studio, where members of the audience are invited to guess how it's done. A bit like those nicely diverting Saturday night magic specials the BBC did a few years ago. A bit pointless, and it's lucky we'd Live-Paused it to write all this bumph, so we can skip past it.

Now you're talking: Brazilian adverts! We could do a long and unpopular update just about these. Mercifully, we won't. We'll restrict ourselves to the following pictures.

The last of these is a trailer for "Show Do Tom", which is on later. We're mightily tempted to compile another synopsis of that, but we'd quite like to have some readers left this time tomorrow.

After the break, they carry on with the Magicians Code bits for ages, merely cutting to Lovely Eliana asking an audience member how they think it's done, just before they reveal the answer (a false body switcheroo, generally). It's a bit like us just copying and pasting text from UK:Resistance and saying whether we thought each bit was funny or not, then claiming it's all-new content. Whereas of course, in reality, we just copy and paste it all into Blogger, but then replace the words 'Sonic', 'Sega' and 'Emily Booth' with 'ITV1', 'Big Brother' and 'Dark Haired One Out Of Tatu'. All this has also reminded us how 'Breaking The Magicians Code' could be very interesting, if only it didn't make the seemingly conscious decision to be irredeemably shit instead.

Suddenly, the show is hijacked by another programme called 'Sorria Voce Esta Na Record', where a bloke who looks a bit like a jolly Hugo Chávez and a bloke who's supposed to be an American (but who clearly isn't) are in front of a crowd.

Before we can understand what's going on, a man with a bag of potatoes wanders on, and begins to chuck spuds at 'John', with accompanying comedy sound effects. The man (called Shaolin, a caption handily tells us) is angry about some sort of misunderstanding. The jolly Chávez man calms it down, and everyone laughs.

Then, in accordance with the UN statute that states all non-English television stations must have a hidden-camera stunt show BY LAW, it's prank time. A man asks passers-by to start a sprint, by firing a starters pistol. This happens every day in Brazil, we imagine. Certainly, none of the passers by seem perturbed by this. But, when they fire the pistol, a dead pigeon falls out of the tree above them. Repeat several times. Ha-ha-larity ensues.

(Hilarity not pictured)

Cut back to the Tudo é Possível and Lovely Eliana. She tells us to, well, do one, as it's the end of the show. No credits, no end music, not even any applause, just a station logo and copyright notice. No messing about at Record TV. At this point, we can't help but feel they could have made a bit more effort here. Maybe have Lovely Eliana's comedy dad walking in and shouting "right, I want you all out of my house now" or something. Oh well.

The next programme (after Incomprehensible Local News which includes lots of old men in a field playing accordions) is a talent show called, quite magnificently," Successo!"

We make our excuses, and put the Spanish Football on. But we'll be back for more next week, Lovely Eliana. Maybe. If only to see what sort of thing goes on for the first two hours. We do hope it isn't just Lovely Eliana explaining the rules to the costume-stuff-box game.

NEXT TIME ON SECRET TELEVISION: Sitting through hours of TVEi, trying to find something to write about.

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Top Of The Tubes

For a while, we've been chucking out several clips of televised miscellanea (under a staggeringly original pseudonym) on this hot new website called You-Tube. Everyone'll be talking about in next year, you just wait. Now, as we've got the memory span of a gnat, we're not sure which ones we've mentioned on here, so here's a quick chart rundown of our most popular clips.

(Legal notice: When we say "our most popular clips", we actually mean "stuff we've found and put online, and have crossed our fingers that the original copyright holders aren't so litigious they honestly believe someone having put sixty seconds of their work into a tiny flash-video window means no-one will buy their DVDs any more".)

During the following, if you've got to hum a Top Of The Pops chart countdown theme to yourself, we'd much rather it were the Paul Hardcastle one, as that's the best one. A cross section of clip YouTube viewer comments are sprinkled throughout.

10. Channel Four promo, early 1980s

"She seems very relaxed about the fact that her girlfriend has an enormous head."

In a move to enrage Paul Dacre, we stumbled across a trailer for a typically 1980s Channel Four broadcast of movie 'A Question Of Love'. As Voiceover Lady tells us, it's a sensitive love drama about how one woman's love for another woman threatens her family ties. All performed without 'clever' editing, a thumping backing soundtrack, or 'wry' voiceover. A gentler, and probably better, age. Still, The Friday Night Project, eh?

1783 Views.

9. Honda Impossible Dream: World Cup Karaoke Version

"yeah"

Thanks to Honda, the entire nation of England could sing their way to a meaningless 2-2 draw with Sweden in the 2006 World Cup. Which gives us a quick excuse to chuck out one of our pet theories.

In May 2002, Terry Venables - possibly the most famous person nearly to get into a lift with BrokenTV but preferring to wait for the next one instead, name drop fans - made a bit of a faux pas. Telling an audience of advertising executives that ITV always fared worse than the BBC for big World Cup Final matches because football fans hate adverts, while he was employed by ITV. Of course, he was mostly correct, but here's how we'd tackle the problem: take a tip from the US coverage of the SuperBowl. A big part of the SuperBowl coverage is the plethora of one-off advertising extravaganzas, so why can't the same be applied to ITV's coverage of World Cup games? Imagine the scene - the morning of the World Cup Final, John Smiths put out a load of newspaper adverts stating how Peter Kay will star in a three-part advert during that night's match, which will never be repeated. Accompany this with teaser poster adverts in the week leading up to the game, even a quick interview on Richard and Judy. There's an extra three million viewers for ITV1's coverage, right there. Do the same for other companies, and you've got so many viewers watching, they'll hardly notice how dire ITV1's football coverage is.

As our Pet Theories go, it's not quite up there with how Paramount should have turned Indiana Jones into a biannual movie franchise with new actors assuming the role every ten years or so, effectively creating a suitable rival for James Bond, but not too bad. And that's almost what happened here, with a few companies used what was bound to be ITV's largest audience of the year (their only exclusive broadcast of a midweek England 2006 World Cup match) being the surest thing they've had to a banker since the 1998 World Cup. A few companies seized the initiative and did something special, so if they could do something similar more often, maybe ITV could get some decent viewing figures for their football head-to-heads. After all, the adverts have only got to be more interesting than Alan Shearer droning on about how he'd wished England were in the final instead of Germany/Italy/Brazil/San Marino.

2687 Views.

8. Jasper Carrott vs Monty Python

"piss off LlamaFarmer93 hes much beeter than monty pithon"

Not sure if the above comment was supposed to represent a Birmingham accent, but anyways. The Acocks Green laffmeister waxes lyrical, in an affectionate style, about the Pythons. It's very good, and especially interesting because the whole routine was markedly different to just about everything else he did in An Audience With...

3176 Views.

7. Lynx: Billions (full advert)

"hottttt xD"

Smug ZooNutsLoaded berk improbably attracts lots of women. You know the drill. Full length version shown only during England vs Sweden 2006 (see number 9).

4098 views.

6. Journey by a London Bus (1950)

"Where's reg varney?"

This is more like it. It even attracts some proper and good comments. Very much beloved of Victor Lewis-Smith, this production by the Colonial Film Unit tells those finding themselves foreign, how to use London's bus service. And remember kids, even in this day and age, a cripple still needs much kindness.

4405 views.

5. Lazyboy - Inhale Positivity

"green hats lure children equally well."

Featuring the iconic tones of the late Patrick Allen, this offering from Lazyboy (Lazy B in the UK, due to people accidentally buying their CD thinking it was a chair, or something) is the follow-up to Underwear Goes Inside The Pants. It is good. Listen to it, and heed the words therein. We don't normally upload pop videos, but this one was shamelessly missing from the 'Tube at the time. It's quite nice to see how popular it turned out to be.

5146 views.

4. Carlsberg World Cup advert : full version

"ref is amazing joker"

A nice departure from the standard "ZooNutsLoadedMaxim berk walks into building and unexpectedly get mauled by awful FHM Honeyz" Carlsberg template. The premise shatters completely when you consider that no company actually 'does' pub teams, but it's a nice effort all the same. Another ITV's World Cup England vs Sweden advert. Lucky we'd Sky+'ed it, no?

5522 views.

3. Hugh Laurie lager advert, 1980s

"The two guys i love fron TV have the same hobbie. Also Dr. House and Homer Simpson loves beer."

Before House, before Stuart Little, before that small part in The Borrowers, before (air quotes) A Bit Of Fry & Laurie (/air quotes), before The Gun Seller (which everyone really should read - it's ace), possibly even before The Crystal Cube, the excellent Hugh Laurie cropped up in this early 80's (we think) advert for Kestrel Lager. Doing Generic Nerd Voice 47, for some reason. Possibly that's why we never see Kestrel Lager on sale anywhere these days.

9773 views.

2. Ford Cortina advert, circa 1984

"CAHPISTA RESTAURADOR"

Perennial favourite of dodgy minicab drivers, it's the Ford Cortina. As, according to this advert, it's also the second coming of Christ himself. (more) And the advert seems massively popular, too. Not sure why. Our uploads of Classic Massingham Majesty should have received at least double the view count of this clip, dammit.

14,594 views

1. Pet Shop Boys - Numb (England World Cup Version)

"footballers are narcisstic fairies"

I say, steady on LeamingtonSteve! Most popular thing we've put on YouTube, and quite correctly, too. The best song the Pet Shop Boys have recorded since Behaviour, and football. This is the sort of reason why, despite employing Mark Lawrenson, BBC Sport will always have a special place in our hearts. While ITV went for the relatively predicable choice of Johnny Cash's rendition of Hurt, the Beeb went for this. And it wasn't even a single at the time they used it. Typically, even though a home and pub audience of about thirty million Britons got to experience this wonderful montage (no, hang on, while we're making completely unformed guesses on viewing figures, make that forty million), Parlophone dithered uselessly and when the single was finally released about five months later, nobody really noticed. In fact, if everyone who watched our upload of this clip had gone out and bought the single, Sir Neil Tennent and Earl Chris Lowe (BrokenTV Birthday Honours List 2006) would have had a proper number one, not just a phoney baloney one from a two-bob telly blog. Gah.

24,030 Views.

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Well, just like with the proper charts, we're slightly surprised and a little disappointed by some of the omissions from the list. No Coughs And Sneezes, no Camel News Caravan, no Beavers? Sold!, but it is good the see the Pettoes back at number one in a chart. Expect another chart rundown the next time we've completely failed to watch any recent telly whatsoever and are really scrabbling around for something to write about.

And as for our earlier mention of litigation:

EXCLUSIVE DVD RELEASE NEWS

ITV are about to put out a commercial DVD containing the last ten minutes of an edition of World Of Sport from around 1980, including such gems as "League Division Four", "summary of today's sport" and "later on Southern". Presumably. Otherwise, our video of it getting removed from YouTube at the copyright holders request would be a completely pointless, stupid and spiteful move on their part. Either way, it seems Dickie Davies' excellently rakish moustache is too hot for YouTube to handle. Perhaps it is owned by Viacom.

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