I wonder if SFX will be covering The Palace? After all, it's clearly set in some alternate Universe. On the obvious level, our royal family is not made up of an early-20s King, his younger "playboy prince" brother, their scheming older sister ("oh I just can't wait to be Queen", to paraphrase The Lion King), and a Queen Mother who can't be any older than Prince Charles. Oh, and there's a younger sister too, but she only turned up for about two minutes of episode one. Maybe they forgot she existed? I did. It's not only the family, mind -- it's the general level of believability in the whole thing. Which is pretty low.
The Palace's jaunty theme tune and cheesy character shots are the key here. This is, to all intents and purposes, a soap -- albeit a soap with the odd posh accent, better performances and better direction. The political machinations on display are much more Eastenders than The West Wing, its characters more... well, ITV than BBC, to be blunt. Jane Asher looks faintly martyred as the Queen Mother, probably quite aware that if this were on the BBC her role would've gone to Susan Hampshire and she'd have actually had some dialogue. The older sister (whose name escapes me) sits in her room, scheming away to be Queen, with only the support of her ex-military secretary... and constantly fails to get anywhere. You half expect each episode to end with her plans failed, unnoticed by anyone else, and her exclaiming, "why if it weren't for you pesky kids... I'll get you next time King Richard!"
In this week's episode two, Richard (or King Richard IV, as the credits insist) takes on the Government over cuts in defence spending (the Iraq war apparently still happened in this alternate reality). The King isn't meant to do this, you see, as the British monarch should remain political impartial. But despite the Prime Minister's attempts to stop him, Richard fights on, because he believes in his cause. Hooray! But then the PM's office leaks photos of him partying, a move orchestrated by Richard's girlfriend Miranda (who, incidentally, works for the PM -- oh the complications!) So what does Richard do? Does he fight on regardless, sure of his moral standpoint -- hoorah good King Richard! Go go New Monarchy! -- or does he give up, write a letter of apology to the PM, and dump his girlfriend by ignoring her? You guess.
Some of the actors appear to be under the impression they're in a serious attempt to examine the royals through drama. While they're clearly wrong, their relatively heavyweight performances lend the primary storylines a bit more depth and interest than the childish twitterings of the staff -- who, this week, were on a mission to collect toenail clippings and hair samples from each of the royals; not to sell to gullible folk on eBay, as you might expect, but to swap for cigarette butts of that guy from Manic Street Preachers who died (clearly, this alternate universe hasn't been thoroughly thought through, it's far too similar to ours -- tsk tsk.)
The Palace is, by and large, ridiculous, and only occasionally consciously so. While I'm far from being a Royalist, I can't escape the feeling that such an institution as the British monarchy should be given a bit more respect than to be turned into a clone of Dynasty (or so I'm told; I've never seem Dynasty, but this is rather how I imagine it).
Showing posts with label soap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soap. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Saturday, 19 January 2008
TV: Moving Wallpaper & Echo Beach - Season 1, Episode 3
The more it goes on, the more convinced I am that Echo Beach exists solely to support and pay off Moving Wallpaper. Take this week's beach buggy -- the "Buggle" -- for instance. It turns up first in Moving Wallpaper as a "prop for this week's episode", where it's used to comic effect in another scene of Jonathan Pope's hilarious ineptitude as a human being. When it turns up in Echo Beach, some of the characters drive around in it for a few minutes (in a bit of poorly sped-up footage) for no reason. At all. It's there for the sake of Moving Wallpaper, and because it needs an excuse to be in Moving Wallpaper it's also in Echo Beach.
The same can be said for various other things -- including several lines of dialogue, or Susie Amy's character (if you just watched Echo Beach her slow involvement might seem to be mysterious, but paired with Moving Wallpaper her begging is clear -- and unless Echo Beach pulls out a "why she's so mysterious" twist, the Moving Wallpaper gag will remain the only reason for it). And the acting and writing of Echo Beach is generally pretty dismal too. I can't be certain if that's deliberate, as it's clearly a spoof just tied in with the sitcom it follows, or just because everyone involved is a bit rubbish. Still, as the only reason to watch it is for those Moving Wallpaper pay-offs, does it really matter?
As for Moving Wallpaper itself... well, that's just great. While it may lack a great deal of originality (beyond the obvious ties to its sister show), it still manages amusing characters, situations and dialogue. It's certainly the funniest thing ITV have produced for a long time. Or the most intentionally funny thing, anyway. Even the impression that it's a vague collection of subplots with no primary storyline does little to dent the amusement value of it. Ben Miller is infinitely more at home as Pope than he is in Primeval, and the rest of the cast make a fair job of their largely formulaic characters (incidentally, the guy playing the young male writer (I have no idea of any of the other characters' names) seems to play the same role in everything I've seen him in. I wonder if he minds being so typecast?)
Providing it can keep it up, I hope Moving Wallpaper survives to further seasons. I could well stand to lose Echo Beach, however... but then, one wouldn't be quite the same without the other.
The same can be said for various other things -- including several lines of dialogue, or Susie Amy's character (if you just watched Echo Beach her slow involvement might seem to be mysterious, but paired with Moving Wallpaper her begging is clear -- and unless Echo Beach pulls out a "why she's so mysterious" twist, the Moving Wallpaper gag will remain the only reason for it). And the acting and writing of Echo Beach is generally pretty dismal too. I can't be certain if that's deliberate, as it's clearly a spoof just tied in with the sitcom it follows, or just because everyone involved is a bit rubbish. Still, as the only reason to watch it is for those Moving Wallpaper pay-offs, does it really matter?
As for Moving Wallpaper itself... well, that's just great. While it may lack a great deal of originality (beyond the obvious ties to its sister show), it still manages amusing characters, situations and dialogue. It's certainly the funniest thing ITV have produced for a long time. Or the most intentionally funny thing, anyway. Even the impression that it's a vague collection of subplots with no primary storyline does little to dent the amusement value of it. Ben Miller is infinitely more at home as Pope than he is in Primeval, and the rest of the cast make a fair job of their largely formulaic characters (incidentally, the guy playing the young male writer (I have no idea of any of the other characters' names) seems to play the same role in everything I've seen him in. I wonder if he minds being so typecast?)
Providing it can keep it up, I hope Moving Wallpaper survives to further seasons. I could well stand to lose Echo Beach, however... but then, one wouldn't be quite the same without the other.
Friday, 11 January 2008
TV: Moving Wallpaper & Echo Beach - Season 1, Episode 1
British readers can't fail to have missed the hype surrounding these, ITV1's big new event TV. If you have, let me summarise: Moving Wallpaper is a comedy (I think everyone expected it to be a drama, but there's no doubt it's a comedy) about the making of a new soap for ITV1; Echo Beach is the aforementioned soap. Events on each show impact on the other. Innovative! Well, it is from the makers of Spooks, Hustle and Life On Mars... yet they were all on BBC One and this is on ITV... well, that says something straight away...
Several reviewers have wondered about the potential success of Moving Wallpaper, for two reasons. One, TV programmes about TV never fare that well. This I can agree with, and, as the lead in to Echo Beach, it could have a knock-on effect. However, the primetime scheduling, heavy advertising, innovative idea, and the fact that it is actually quite funny, might be enough to combat this. Secondly, that you need to watch Echo Beach to get it. Based on the evidence of this opening pair of episodes, that's bollocks. Yes, Moving Wallpaper references in to Echo Beach in a way that the latter show doesn't, but here's the key:
If you just watch Echo Beach, it'll seem to be a pretty shitty, derivative soap. If you watch both shows, you'll realise that Echo Beach is actually a great big spoof of the genre, where everyone's in on the joke. (I hope it is and they are anyway, cos if not...) For example, in Moving Wallpaper there's a reference to producer Jonathan Pope having spent all of the design budget on his office, so the key set of the club/diner/surf house/whatever will now have to be a derelict building... and then, in Echo Beach, it's derelict. Another example: there's a small girl they need to cry in episode one, but she won't... so Pope tells her that her parents have died -- hey presto, waterworks. She turns up in Echo Beach for no apparent reason. The soap services the the sitcom, not the other way round.
I feel a great big clue to this lies in the scheduling. They're on at 9PM, for one thing -- not a soap slot. And they're usually on Friday night, which is quite definitively Comedy Night for pretty much all stations (with the obvious exception of BBC Two and their horridly over-done Thursdays Are Funny campaign). And then, to top it off, they're paired with Al Murray's Happy Hour, which is even more obviously a comedy. And just to compound things, this Thursday-shown opener was paired with Katy Brand's Best Bits, just to remove any doubt that what you're watching is a spoof.
I'll be curious to see the reaction to these shows, though I don't tend to read things like Heat or go trawling forums so maybe I'll never know. But I rather suspect that the soap is just serious enough to fool most people, but not good enough to keep them around; and, as we've established, TV shows and TV shows never do well. It won't be the greatest loss if this flops, but it will be a shame that such a good idea has been thrown away. My greatest fear, though, is that Wallpaper will flop, Beach will be a hit, and we'll be left with another shitty soap filling our schedules...
Several reviewers have wondered about the potential success of Moving Wallpaper, for two reasons. One, TV programmes about TV never fare that well. This I can agree with, and, as the lead in to Echo Beach, it could have a knock-on effect. However, the primetime scheduling, heavy advertising, innovative idea, and the fact that it is actually quite funny, might be enough to combat this. Secondly, that you need to watch Echo Beach to get it. Based on the evidence of this opening pair of episodes, that's bollocks. Yes, Moving Wallpaper references in to Echo Beach in a way that the latter show doesn't, but here's the key:
If you just watch Echo Beach, it'll seem to be a pretty shitty, derivative soap. If you watch both shows, you'll realise that Echo Beach is actually a great big spoof of the genre, where everyone's in on the joke. (I hope it is and they are anyway, cos if not...) For example, in Moving Wallpaper there's a reference to producer Jonathan Pope having spent all of the design budget on his office, so the key set of the club/diner/surf house/whatever will now have to be a derelict building... and then, in Echo Beach, it's derelict. Another example: there's a small girl they need to cry in episode one, but she won't... so Pope tells her that her parents have died -- hey presto, waterworks. She turns up in Echo Beach for no apparent reason. The soap services the the sitcom, not the other way round.
I feel a great big clue to this lies in the scheduling. They're on at 9PM, for one thing -- not a soap slot. And they're usually on Friday night, which is quite definitively Comedy Night for pretty much all stations (with the obvious exception of BBC Two and their horridly over-done Thursdays Are Funny campaign). And then, to top it off, they're paired with Al Murray's Happy Hour, which is even more obviously a comedy. And just to compound things, this Thursday-shown opener was paired with Katy Brand's Best Bits, just to remove any doubt that what you're watching is a spoof.
I'll be curious to see the reaction to these shows, though I don't tend to read things like Heat or go trawling forums so maybe I'll never know. But I rather suspect that the soap is just serious enough to fool most people, but not good enough to keep them around; and, as we've established, TV shows and TV shows never do well. It won't be the greatest loss if this flops, but it will be a shame that such a good idea has been thrown away. My greatest fear, though, is that Wallpaper will flop, Beach will be a hit, and we'll be left with another shitty soap filling our schedules...
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