This Time With Alan Partridge Page 11

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 2nd April 2019, 9:18 AM

A thought popped into my mind post viewing last night was where previous it was toe-curling to see him wriggle out of hilarious situations, with this series it was just toe-curling at how bad it was.

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Hercules Grytpype Thynne, I'm starting to wonder if Steve Coogen ran off with your wife, such is your obsession with telling us how bad this series has been. Can't you just keep watching your old DVDs if you just want to see Partridge doing the same thing over and over again and the character never dveloping?

For me it's been a curate's egg of a series; good in parts but with too many bits that either didn't work or were a bit too repetitive. It's also been interesting to see the way Alan changed over the course of the six episodes from nervous and unsure in the first one to the deluded megalomaniac he turned back into come the finale.

That said, I found the last two episodes the weakest of the series, As someone else said, the fall out with his co-host (Jennie, NOT Jennifer!) seemed to come out of nowhere when, onscreen at least, they appreared to have a bit of a rapport. the African prince and translator segment seemed to go nowhere and get cut off abruptly and the phione call with the woman who'd fallen on a ledge off Kinder Scout just seemed mean-spirited and unfunny. And the last conversation about Alan being called to a meeting with Jennie and the Director General suggeasts that if there is to be a second series, it won't be another one of "This Time With Alan Patridge". Back to the Linton Travel Tavern maybe?

Quote: Rood Eye @ 25th March 2019, 10:20 PM

Well, I think we can safely say Steve wasn't Alan tonight. The show wasn't so much about the #MeToo movement as it was about sexist attitudes.

If the #MeToo movement were primarily, or even significantly, concerned with men's perceptions of a woman's ability to reverse a car into a parking space or the acceptability of Les Dawson's mother-in-law jokes in a modern society, I'd say the show did a good job. But it's not, and so it didn't.

#MeToo is about sexist attitudes in the same way the Battle of the Somme was about Anglo-German rivalry: sort of "in a way . . . but not really".

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Thought that episode perfectly captured how an early evening BBC magazine show would skirt around talk of sex abuse by going for generic women's empowerment themes and how Alan would show how he totally understood about female vulnerability by talking over women and coming up with the silliest possible examples of male malfeasance to condemn and then behaving in exactly the manner he'd just insisted was no longer appropriate in all the other scenes. Alan's telling of his own "story" felt a bit cheap, but the constant stream of "casual sexism is bad" followed by casual sexism was very Alan. They were never actually going to theme the show on the real issues behind the #MeToo movement either in the light entertainment magazine show world of ThisTime or as a Partridge comedy. Brass Eye it ain't (although I can imagine Chris Morris doing that opening, "merely a shaved boy" and all)

Plus sometimes Alan has to branch out. Last night's interview segment where he tried to hide how massively out of depth he was without a female co-presenter by attempting to camp it up in a way we all knew he'd feel awkward about afterwards was much funnier than the segments where he was just predictably wobbly and reading the wrong bits off the autocue.

Shame they couldn't have developed Jennie earlier in the show. The feud would have been much funnier if it was a slow build thing with tension Jennie covered up immaculately (and Alan less so) on air in earlier episodes rather than something which got shoehorned in just to get Jennie off air for the last episode. Could have done the same thing they did with the Ruth segments but in the middle of interviews rather than nails-down-blackboard obvious sketches

I take it from that finale they're done with the This Time format anyway, so a few people here are going to be happy.

Quote: Basil Rathbon @ 2nd April 2019, 11:44 AM

Hercules Grytpype Thynne, I'm starting to wonder if Steve Coogen ran off with your wife, such is your obsession with telling us how bad this series has been.

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Dear Baz

I wouldn't have thought a dozen or so posts in 11 pages could be called an obsession, besides it was to counteract the people who thought it was a good series, which of course I disagree with.
If I said nowt after my first criticism and the thread was to then develop into a love-fest, it would appear that the series was a winner, which it clearly wasn't as even posters who liked it said it wasn't as good as previous.

And if Steve had made a play for my wife, I would have helped him get her out of the house as her wheelchair is not the most mobile of its type.

Just as a footnote:-
There have been people comparing it to early evening viewing, such as the One Show, but I don't think that is its target - surely with the title and subjects covered it is a piss take of mid-morning progs. Such as This Morning.

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 2nd April 2019, 4:28 PM

There have been people comparing it to early evening viewing, such as the One Show, but I don't think that is its target - surely with the title and subjects covered it is a piss take of mid-morning progs. Such as This Morning.

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No. The inanity of the VT's and subjects are far more reminiscent of The One Show, as opposed to the trashy and tabloid nature of This Morning. But more than that, the BBC specifically describe This Time as "an evening weekday magazine show".

Despite what the Beeb might say. to me it smacks of mid morning or late night, never early evening.

Wouldn't this count as a spoof of a show, rather than a conventional sitcom?

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 4th April 2019, 9:18 AM

Wouldn't this count as a spoof of a show, rather than a conventional sitcom?

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I'd take issue with "rather than".

If it's main purpose were to parody one or more real-life TV magazine shows, then I'd agree.

However, I think it's main purpose is to be funny in its own right.

One could hardly say with any confidence that "Allo, Allo!" Is a parody of "Secret Army" rather than a sitcom in its own right.

I didn't say it wasn't a sitcom, Rood.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 4th April 2019, 7:58 PM

I didn't say it wasn't a sitcom, Rood.

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True, you didn't say it wasn't a sitcom.

Having said that, I didn't say you said it wasn't a sitcom.

There was a bit too much of Simon turning it in to a double act rather than focusing on Alan. I like Simon in Alpha Papa but he has too much involvement in This Time. I would have preferred he was sat alone for the final episode and either nailed it and it ended triumphantly or he dive bombed with lots of looking at the camera unsure what to do and long, uncomfortable pauses.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 4th April 2019, 9:18 AM

Wouldn't this count as a spoof of a show, rather than a conventional sitcom?

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Yes. As would the majority of all Alan Partridge formats to date.

Quote: Definitely Tarby @ 4th April 2019, 9:25 PM

There was a bit too much of Simon turning it in to a double act rather than focusing on Alan. I like Simon in Alpha Papa but he has too much involvement in This Time.

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Did you like him in Mid Morning Matters?

Quote: jsg @ 6th April 2019, 2:46 PM

Did you like him in Mid Morning Matters?

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Have to admit I have it on DVD but have yet to watch Mid Morning Matters.

Quote: jsg @ 6th April 2019, 2:46 PM

Did you like him in Mid Morning Matters?

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I thought Simon was fine in "Mid-Morning Matters" because it was entirely credible that he'd be in a radio studio with Alan.

On radio, it doesn't matter what you look like, what you wear or indeed what you do as long as the sounds you create are appropriate. All that was important was that Simon assisted Alan when necessary: almost anybody could have replaced him in that capacity and the audience wouldn't have noticed.

On TV, things are entirely different (obviously) and Simon is one of the very last people you'd employ to perform the duties he performed on the TV show. Almost anybody who was reasonably telegenic could have been dragged out of the audience and would have been a better choice for Simon's job as far as entertaining the viewers is concerned.

Rewatching MMM it eclipses This Time.