I thought it was the best episode out of the three.
The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff Page 8
Oh and the three after effects of gin drinking was very similar to the three after effects of taking poison from the Blackadder scarlet pimpernel episode
Hmm...
It continues to raise smiles, but perhaps not as many as it should.
Nice to see Radio Rejects Dan March pop up in the jury box.
This is to modern humour, what Terry and June was and still is to anything funny.
How can they have so abysmally f**ked up such an obviously promising idea....
Great sets, great costumes, everything you could want ...what a waste.
Quite enjoying this. Nice and silly with lots of Naked Gun - style jokes, some of which I thought were quite clever. Also, the gag count is refreshingly-high - I like the scattershot approach to gags in comedies - if one doesn't quite hit the target there's another one right behind it.
Must say I'm quite surprised by the amount of negativity really. It's not perfect but at least it's not up itself or trying to be cool. It's just a daft comedy with lots of daft visual humour and an emphasis on daft gags. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Have to agree with the posters who drew comparisons to Blackadder though. Not just the period aspect but some of the jokes were almost identical.
Being in the minority that found Bleak Expectations self-indulgent, badly written, badly performed nonsense for which an undergraduate drama society from one of our lesser universities might scrape the money together to take to Edinburgh, I didn't think there was much point in watching this. But I did last night, and it was appalling.
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 6 2012, 3:29 AM GMTQuite enjoying this. Nice and silly with lots of Naked Gun - style jokes,
That's The Naked Gun, a successful film from shortly after Margaret Thatcher won a general election? That's a style of comedy so old that your mind refuses to accept it being in anything other than 4x3. Yes, apparently, there are incongruities between the attitudes and language of Dickens and of today, and some period dramas of the 1970s were rather badly acted. There's a two minute sketch in it. If you're really clever, there's a recurring two-minute sketch. As the targets of this are both old and slow moving, for an encore the writers could deliver a pastiche of Crown Court, or perhaps Crossroads if they want to be more contemporary.
It's got the money to run for six episodes in prime-ish time because Robert Webb is (inexplicably) held to be a major comedy force and presumably an appropriate cohort of the creatives were at university with an appropriate cohort of the commissioners.
Must say I'm quite surprised by the amount of negativity really. It's not perfect but at least it's not up itself or trying to be cool.
Behave. The entire premise is that it's spoofing something that allows the semi-educated to feel superior to the rest (oh, I understand the Dickens references, not like the ITV viewers who won't get it, yah). It's Dickens, FFS, not Derida, so the writers can stop pretending that reading A Christmas Carol for O Level makes them Terry Eagleton.
It's just a daft comedy with lots of daft visual humour and an emphasis on daft gags. I don't see anything wrong with that.
"Comedy" implies "funny". I watched for half an hour and didn't laugh, or even smile, once.
Have to agree with the posters who drew comparisons to Blackadder though.
In the dreams of the writers, perhaps.
Not just the period aspect but some of the jokes were almost identical.
It's quite a trick to steal from one of the funniest and best-written shows of recent years and end up with something leaden and badly-written. It tends to imply that the writers didn't actually understand what made Blackadder so good, so instead just ran in, stuffed the bits that weren't nailed down into their pockets and ran off again.
Quote: writeone1 @ March 6 2012, 1:52 AM GMTHow can they have so abysmally f**ked up such an obviously promising idea....
It isn't an obviously promising idea. It's the sort of thing that sounds funny at two in the morning in the JCR, and might get as far as a fringe show which plays to three people. It relies not only on an outline knowledge of the tropes of both Dickens and adaptations of Dickens, which is up to a point fair enough, but also on the idea that people are sufficiently engaged with Dickens to care about the incongruities. It's the same problem as those interminable Bronte/Austin spoofs that French and Saunders and Victoria Wood have done: English graduates have far more invested in the source.
I'm not sure I can think of a "spoof" of a literary or cinematic source that has the legs to last for more than one sketch. There's the initial recognition: oh, that's so and so. There's the slightly more detailed recognition: that's such-and-such by so-and-so. Then, what? It's spoofing so-and-so's such-and-such: so what? Where's the funny? Those French and Saunders film spoofs outlasted their welcome at three minutes, because once you've recognised what they're spoofing, it still needs to be actually funny, and that's rarely the case.
I'm sure someone can come up with a counter example, but if you drew up a list of highly-regarded sketches or series, I suspect few of them would be overt "spoofs". There's something dreadfully undergraduate about the whole concept.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:57 AM GMTThere's something dreadfully undergraduate about the whole concept.
*yawn*
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:57 AM GMTThat's The Naked Gun, a successful film from shortly after Margaret Thatcher won a general election?
Well spotted old bean. That's the thing about genre and style you are allowed to keep doing it. They'll be doing gunfights in westerns next I shouldn't wonder too. 
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:57 AM GMTI'm not sure I can think of a "spoof" of a literary or cinematic source that has the legs to last for more than one sketch.
The adventures of Sherlocks Holme's Smarter Brother. Young Frankenstein. Blazing Saddles. Ripping Yarns. The Princess Bride.
Sorry some of them were before MT. The cut off point for comedy stylings.
Quote: Marc P @ March 6 2012, 9:21 AM GMTThe adventures of Sherlocks Holme's Smarter Brother. Young Frankenstein. Blazing Saddles. Ripping Yarns. The Princess Bride.
OK, I'll grant you those, although Sherlock Holme's Smarter Brother is minor and Ripping Yarns is to put it mildly not Fawlty Towers. Perhaps what they indicate is that if you've already written or starred in Oscar-winning comedies, you might have the sureness of hand to manage a parody next time, but most writers would do well to steer clear. And I'd also suggest that all the things you mention would be funny even if you knew nothing whatsoever about what they are pastiching: they're funny in their own right. Bleak Old Etc just isn't: the parody is the joke, and without it there's not a lot left.
As ever, it's amazing how passionately angry some people can get over a TV comedy.
I suppose it's good to raise some kind of emotion in viewers, though. Although I imagine they were going for slighty more positive ones.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:57 AM GMTBeing in the minority that found Bleak Expectations self-indulgent, badly written, badly performed nonsense for which an undergraduate drama society from one of our lesser universities might scrape the money together to take to Edinburgh, I didn't think there was much point in watching this. But I did last night, and it was appalling.
That's The Naked Gun, a successful film from shortly after Margaret Thatcher won a general election? That's a style of comedy so old that your mind refuses to accept it being in anything other than 4x3. Yes, apparently, there are incongruities between the attitudes and language of Dickens and of today, and some period dramas of the 1970s were rather badly acted. There's a two minute sketch in it. If you're really clever, there's a recurring two-minute sketch. As the targets of this are both old and slow moving, for an encore the writers could deliver a pastiche of Crown Court, or perhaps Crossroads if they want to be more contemporary.
It's got the money to run for six episodes in prime-ish time because Robert Webb is (inexplicably) held to be a major comedy force and presumably an appropriate cohort of the creatives were at university with an appropriate cohort of the commissioners.
"Comedy" implies "funny". I watched for half an hour and didn't laugh, or even smile, once.
It's quite a trick to steal from one of the funniest and best-written shows of recent years and end up with something leaden and badly-written. It tends to imply that the writers didn't actually understand what made Blackadder so good, so instead just ran in, stuffed the bits that weren't nailed down into their pockets and ran off again.
It isn't an obviously promising idea. It's the sort of thing that sounds funny at two in the morning in the JCR, and might get as far as a fringe show which plays to three people. It relies not only on an outline knowledge of the tropes of both Dickens and adaptations of Dickens, which is up to a point fair enough, but also on the idea that people are sufficiently engaged with Dickens to care about the incongruities. It's the same problem as those interminable Bronte/Austin spoofs that French and Saunders and Victoria Wood have done: English graduates have far more invested in the source.
I'm not sure I can think of a "spoof" of a literary or cinematic source that has the legs to last for more than one sketch. There's the initial recognition: oh, that's so and so. There's the slightly more detailed recognition: that's such-and-such by so-and-so. Then, what? It's spoofing so-and-so's such-and-such: so what? Where's the funny? Those French and Saunders film spoofs outlasted their welcome at three minutes, because once you've recognised what they're spoofing, it still needs to be actually funny, and that's rarely the case.
I'm sure someone can come up with a counter example, but if you drew up a list of highly-regarded sketches or series, I suspect few of them would be overt "spoofs". There's something dreadfully undergraduate about the whole concept.
Well I liked it. So nyer.
Yeh but you're from oop north.
And probably consider a man in braces with a ferret down his trousers, the height of TV gold.
Quote: zooo @ March 6 2012, 12:34 PM GMTAs ever, it's amazing how passionately angry some people can get over a TV comedy.
I know. I wonder if drama writers get the same stick? I bet they don't. There's my tip...become a drama writer. It's like comedy but you don't have to think up three jokes per page and people don't rip you to shreds online if they don't laugh.
Seriously, I reckon you have to be some sort of masochist to want to write TV comedy. Because no matter what you make, in what style, with which performers etc, lots of people are going to absolutely hate it and call you a talentless wanker, especially online. I've done it myself, to my shame.
But after seeing the tortuous process of how a comedy actually gets made I'm a lot more forgiving nowadays. After all, nobody sets out to make rubbish comedy. I was in a room last week where several potential BBC sitcoms were having a readthrough, and despite the wealth of jolly guffaws, the atmosphere when a gag goes tits up is horrible. EVERYONE feels uncomfortable, especially the poor writer who's sat there, sinking slowly beneath his script, wondering why nobody laughed. It's awful, the same feeling you get when someone tells a joke at the pub and it fails to raise a titter, only magnified x10.
One thing I do know is if by some miracle it ever comes to pass that I get a sitcom on telly, I won't be rushing to read the BCG forums. Or any online comedy forums for that matter.
Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:57 AM GMTIt's got the money to run for six episodes in prime-ish time because Robert Webb is (inexplicably) held to be a major comedy force
Or because the Radio show it comes from has been very successful.
Quote: sootyj @ March 6 2012, 1:22 PM GMTYeh but you're from oop north.
And probably consider a man in braces with a ferret down his trousers, the hight of TV gold.
HOW do you know about my latest script? 'Eli And T'Ferret' is still supposed to be secret!!