Quote: woble @ February 5 2009, 8:27 PM GMT
Hello, never written on here before but after watching a good twenty minutes of Not Going Out last Friday I feel I have to say something. I thought it was so bad I was almost sick. I don't know how anybody can see even the smallest grain of humour in that excuse for a comedy. The overall quality of the thing was just so breathtakingly low I don't know what anybody could ever see in it. The acting, the set, the script, the narrative, I could go on. This is BBC One prime time Friday night, you would never find a drama made in such a way with such a budget. I reckon you'd struggle to buy a fridge with the budget this thing has got, and it's on air because Lee Mack is supposed to be famous. If that script was sent in by a nobody it wouldn't have got through the BBC letterbox, never mind the comedy executives. Its a prime example of something being made because of who had written it, not how good it is, Lab Rats being another example, shocker. There is so much talent out there dieing to get a break and the BBC just turns to Lee Mack because he's a 'name'. The episode in question was the last one on BBC One with the running joke of a girl getting pregnant because her boyfriend had a little time to himself in the bath before her. What a crap joke, who even shares bath water these days anyway?
Veryveryveryveryveryveryvery dull.
Each to their own, obviously, but it's quite hard to read such a systematic dismantling of a programme I've had such a big hand in. Hey, I'll live. But just to address a couple of points:
I'm not quite sure what the budget has to do with it. You compare the budget to the price of a fridge, which suggests you think it is too low. It's a studio-based sitcom and makes no attempt to disguise that, but it's actually a hell of a lot cheaper to make a "one camera" show like Lead Balloon or The Office, and yet they look more "filmic" and less stagey and perhaps more expensive? Either way, to criticise the lack of budget is a practical rather than a creative complaint so it's difficult to defend: it costs what it costs.
It wasn't commissioned because Lee Mack was a "name", as he was much less well know than he is now when we got the green light, back in 2005, before he'd even hosted They Think It's All Over or been on Jack Dee's Live At The Apollo. Certainly he'd been in The Sketch Show on ITV, but as part of a team, and the BBC gave us the commission based on a pilot we made, not on his celebrity. We are in our third series now, and the BBC simply don't recommission unless they feel the figures are good, or that they've got a critical hit on their hands, or both! Our numbers have been steady throughout, which is why they have made a commitment to the show. We are very grateful for this support. It does seem that a solid number of viewers return to the show.
As for the notion that if a "nobody" had sent in the script it wouldn't have been made - it's an odious hypothetical. There are so many factors that influence whether or not a script is made or not. I can assure you that not all first-draft scripts were accepted and taken to second draft. Some were rejected. This one was accepted - and not because Lee wrote it - he is a co-executive producer, but the other execs and the producer act as quality controllers and sounding boards for all scripts. It was chosen to open the series because it was felt that it introduced the characters well, which would make it inclusive for first-time viewers. Even with the first series, the episodes went out in a different order to the one we planned. If you don't like the show, clearly this won't change your mind, but the scripts go through many rigorous stages before they are filmed, with jokes being changed and added right up until recording (as anyone who attended the audience read-throughs will know: these are designed to test the material with an audience to see if they work. Not many other TV comedies do this, but we do.)
Also, on the plot point about the bath water, if you'd watched to the end, you'd know that Lucy didn't know Lee had been in the bath, so they didn't knowingly share bath water. It doesn't matter, really, as you'd turned off or over.
I feel the comparison with Lab Rats was tenuous too, other than the fact that you didn't like that either. That was certainly not commissioned because of a "name". It was developed from a pilot on BBC Three where "new talent" is nurtured. (Chris Addison is well known to those who see a lot of live comedy, but The Thick Of It is a BBC Four show, with a relatively small, clued-in audience. He's exactly the kind of new talent the BBC should be bringing through, and it is.)
I don't mean this to sound too defensive, I just felt that the main charge about why the programme was commissioned was off the mark.
I return to my original thesis: each to their own. I'm just glad you weren't actually sick.