TV Casualty's Christmas Crackers

Christmas was designed for TV. The combination of debilitating meals, cold weather, time off work and a high family member per square metre ratio conspire to make silently vegging out in front of the box an extremely attractive option. And just as normal concepts of time go out the window (can you truthfully see anything but a hungover black smudge when you think of the 1st January?) so too does normal scheduling. For these two or three days of the year we are a captive audience and the listings positively twinkle with festive delights – if you know when and where to look. All too often however the pressure of buying presents, talking to people and the omni present box set mean that some of the best shows are neglected, only coming to light days or weeks later with a passing glance at the TV guide as the Duchess tosses it into the recycling.

Therefore to avoid tears before New Year’s TVC, being the essentially philanthropic enterprise it is, has assembled the very best of viewing in one tragically under visited website. This means that all you have to worry about it whether to drag the TV into the kitchen or bring the mountain to Mohammed.

Surrender your senses to TV Casualty good citizen as we play spot the pun and fly – snowman style – through the wild and varied digiscape of Christmas TV land.

Kicking off Christmas Eve Gordon Ramsay sticks one to the yanks in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA (C4, 9PM) where we presumably get to see Gordon hawk his highly sellable mix of humiliation and inspiration to our American cousins. As we all know by now, Gordon doesn’t mince his words and demands his subjects eat a large slice of humble pie so it will be interesting to see how this plays out across the pond. Completing his monopoly of prime time Channel 4 we are also being given The Best of The F Word (C4, 10pm) followed, bizarrely, by Ramsay’s “favourite film” Sexy Beast. (C4, 11:10pm)

If you couldn’t give a stuffing about Gordon or think his favourite flick is a turkey (It isn't, though I can’t imagine him sitting still long enough to watch one film, never mind enough to justify a favourite film) then ITV 2 is the place to be as they run a double bill of petrol headed thrillers The Fast and the Furious (ITV2, 9pm) and 2 Fast 2 Furious (ITV2, 11pm.) It may surprise you to learn this but behind the rapier wit and sophisticated veneer of TVC beats the heart of a moron, so this potent mix of cars, girls and guns will make its presents felt...

If none of that does it for you then back to back episodes of Father Ted (More 4, 9pm) should ensure a warm rosy glow in the living room before you hightail it up the stairs so Santa can fill your stocking in peace. If that doesn’t satisfy, your dead and I can’t help you.

Moving into the big day EastEnders (BBC1, 6:20pm & 8pm) stands out as a deal breaker. Bradders and Stacey have been grinning out of the cover of every TV guide worth its salt for the last few weeks now to maximise the effect as Max and Stacey’s affair is exposed to a stunned Brannan Family Christmas via the under-rated medium of video. Aside from that it will snow, Good King Wenceles will be played by a brass band and everyone will end up in paper hats in the Vic – a traditional East End Christmas.

As EastEnders begins its second showing of the day Harry Hill’s Christmas TV Burp (ITV, 8pm) gets underway on ITV. I probably should leave this out considering it is “an irreverent look at the Christmas TV schedules” and will no doubt expose TVC for the imitative, third rate sloppy mess it is, but that would be unprofessional. The man is a genius and as soon as I loose my hair and get a few shirts with outsized collars I’m moving into TV. Watch this.

Film-wise The African Queen (C4, 6:10pm) ticks the “they don’t make ‘em like they used too” box as Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn star as the drunken sailor and prim missionary taking lumps out of each other in the Congo, and The Motorcycle Diaries (C4, 10:35pm) biopics a youthful Che Guevara as a trip around South America sows the seeds of revolution in his soul.

If you’re still left groping in the dark despite this, you can turkey fart your way through back to back Peep Show (E4 from 9pm) while The Sopranos (More 4, 12:40am) continues to storm its way through the back catalogue heedless of man or religion.

Break out the box sets on Boxing Day as the schedule looks pretty bereft, I’ll be working my way through Arrested Development. Highlights for the next five days of Christmas include the last ever series of Extras (Thursday 27th December BBC1, 9pm) which includes cameos from David Tenant, George Michael, Gordon Ramsay and Clive Owen (?,) the first episode of the new series of Shameless (New Years Day C4, 10:10pm) and Meet the Fokkers (Friday 28th December BBC 1, 8:30pm.)

Ignore this advice at your peril, and have a good Christmas.

Brannan vs Mitchell

My devotion to Eastenders has recently been on an upward trend as events in the soap begin to take a promising turn for the wretched.

Not since the Krays Chinese Smiled their way round the ol’ East End in the 50’s and 60’s has London seen the likes of what is about to kick off in the otherwise quiet leafy suburb of Watford. Mark my words, it’s going to be a red Christmas in the square as the cobbles get an overdue taste of Mitchell blood.

All the evidence points to a full scale war; Jim has gone into hiding, most likely to direct operations from a heavily fortified compound safe from Mitchell bullets. Bradders, masking an icy intellect behind his ruddy faced hang-dog optimism has taken control of the Market, weeks after suspiciously quitting a high powered city job to “assist” the Market Inspector (whereabouts currently unknown.) Jack, the Brannans’ “man on the inside” has duped his way into a controlling share in a Mitchell enterprise, while the loose coalition between the Brannans and the Beales looks set to become official as Lauren and Peter prepare to enjoin the families in blood.

In contrast the Mitchell Family has never looked weaker. Having failed to produce an heir of any substance in Ben, Phil has taken it upon himself to provide the sole muscle of the operation. Attempts to recruit a Soldier in Jason have so far failed, and while Peggy, Ronnie and Roxy managed to face down the bailiffs as an impressive trio of no-nonsense broads, recent in-fighting is causing divisions that will take more than a few vodka shots to heal.

The gloves are off, and despite loose cannon Steven Beale threatening the entire plan with a premature blazing of Mitchell’s Motors (note Stacey earning her stripes,) things are falling into place that could see the historic seat of the Mitchells change hands before the New Year rings in…

While one world disintegrated, another was saved as Heroes reached its foregone, if no less dramatic finale last Thursday, opting to end things in the time honoured tradition of a double-bill.

Although we never really expected the creators to inflict September the 11^th times a thousand on New York, the finale to this highly watchable if a little trashy American export lived up to the hype, and avoided the misty eyed American patriotism that I always suspected lurked at its core.

I wont give too much away, as I know for many this show is a hang-over box set waiting to happen, but its suffice to say its worth sticking around, if only for the Evil Dead –like leader into season two which is no doubt mere months away.

Crapford

The first few days after a dispatch are usually spent in blogger post coitus. I drift from Eastenders to the news then back, perk up for the Sopranos then float into bed for thirty minutes or so with Mario Puzo’s grinning Godfather and friends. I then slip into a deep slumber for a restful night dreaming of garrotings, two-tone wingtips and cannelloni.

Towards the end of the week however things begin to change. I get the itch, and realise I better watch something new soon or risk my reputation with dead air. This week however, the Greater Manchester Bender Weekender got in the way, and I arrived back on Sunday evening an emaciated, dehydrated, and very worried blogger indeed.

Despite the ticking clock however and in a move the great Don would have been proud of, I made a few key decisions and managed to consolidate my media consumption into a manageable 24 hour morsel, and in doing so stoked the fires once more for the informed, witty and ever reverential phenomena that you have come to love and hate as TV Casualty.

On Sunday night Mothers and Grans everywhere were no doubt boiling the kettle in anticipation of Cranford, the latest period drama to satiate the seemingly endless appetite among the British public for bonnets, bodices and bootstraps. Sunday night’s transmission was my second episode, and showed no change of pace as events lumbered on almost imperceptibly.

Set in a rural village in England, the storyline largely revolves around the goings-on and jolly hi-jinks associated with the arrival of a new young doctor in the town. When not giggling about the new doctor, the six or so women who make up the citizenship routinely go into fits about a new railway line and the Irish, who comprise an as yet unseen malevolent presence ready and waiting to corrupt everything they hold dear.

This episode saw Dame Judy Dench, (cast against type as strong, dignified and English) lose her sister then narrowly miss out on her last chance of happiness without shedding a single tear. Meanwhile, a rapscallion Scot with a twinkle in his eye causes good natured havoc, and the Lady of the Manor steps down from her perch to intervene in the wrongfully arrest of vagabond Jambo from Hollyoaks, in doing so saving him and his one hundred snivelling brat kids.

As you might of guessed, Cranford didn’t overly impress, and in a bid to redress the balance I opted to spend my day off in a dark room with strangers in search of something far more up my street.

Following the entwined fortunes of African-American Gangster Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and the honest New York detective tasked with busting his smack ring (Russell Crowe) American Gangster puts a black perspective on the mafia power struggles that gripped New York in the 60’s and 70’s.

The action joins Lucas after his boss and mentor Bumpy Johnson dies, setting him out on the ambitious goal of flooding the streets of Harlem with cheap, good quality heroin from Vietnam. As his operation grows in size, so too do the difficulties involved with keeping the business safe from corrupt cops, rival gangsters and the investigation of Russell Crowe’s drug trafficking task force.

The film is a brave attempt to breathe new life into the genre at a point where my old friend the Soprano’s seems to have said all there is to say on the matter, which at times it succeeds in doing. However, a fatal flaw lies in the film’s apparent inability to adequately balance feelings of admiration and revulsion for the central character, the dichotomy on which all good gangster films make their bones. We never really get under the skin of Lucas, and he never gets under ours, with the end result that his fate becomes largely unimportant.

In addition, It is impossible not to draw comparisons between American Gangster and other mob movies. The poster, set in the black and white hues redolent of Scarface, practically begs it, while the title of the movie places it firmly within and up against the genre. This is a brave tactic and not one which always pays off, as the film balances familiar themes of fraternal betrayal (The Godfather,) police corruption (Serpico,) the dark side of the American dream (Scarface,) and the Irish (Cranford) with the business of telling the story at hand. One good thing to come out of the film however is the city itself, which takes centre stage as New York emerges as decaying and lawless city of bleached beauty and decrepit magnificence.

For fans of the gangster movies, American Gangster is a watchable if flawed addition to the genre, though less than avid viewers probably shouldn’t bother. Although the movie offers a different take on what has previously been dominated by Italian, and to a lesser extent Irish characters, it doesn’t say anything new or with enough eloquence to give it any stand alone appeal.

Ahh!