Aliens? I’m a TV critic, just get me out of here
The War Of The Worlds
BBC 1, Sunday
I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!
UTV/Virgin Media One, all week
The Crown Netflix
THERE’S nothing more off-putting than watching actors reacting unconvincingly to something that isn’t there. Sadly, that pretty much sums up the entire first episode of BBC1’s The War Of The Worlds. In an odd piece of scheduling, it began on Sunday night straight after His Dark Materials, another period drama in which actors react unconvincingly at things that aren’t there, mostly their daemons, creatures that represent their souls.
In TWOTW, what actually was there, in the first instance, was a giant pod that landed from space in a forest near Woking in Surrey, a town latterly more famous as home to the branch of Pizza Express that gave Prince Andrew what he appeared to believe was an oven-baked alibi.
The problem with this pod was that it looked like it had been recycled from the first episode of last year’s Doctor Who opener as it sat sullenly doing nothing until finally it burst into life. Cue lots of actors reacting unconvincingly to something that wasn’t really there, before they were individually incinerated by a spinning ball that emerged from the pod. Later, it took legs and strode through town setting fire to everything in sight. So, tough luck if you only wanted a lightly golden pepperoni and jalapeño special.
The prime unconvincing reactors are journalist George (Rafe Spall) and his girlfriend Amy (Eleanor Tomlinson, better known as Demelza in Poldark). The pair are living together following his separation from his wife, and while they are perceived to be doing so with some disapproval, they rather delightfully still can afford a maid, albeit one who is among the first casualties of the alien attack.
In trailers, the adaptation promised a lot more than it delivered. The pacing was sluggish, the special effects looked cheap, and the narrative was garbled. What exactly was the significance of cutaways to another alien craft in a desert? I’m damned if I know, and not terribly sure I need to.
This three-parter originally was lined up for last Christmas but postponed, and has already been seen in other territories, hardly a vote of confidence by the BBC. Instead, they seem to have decided to waste it opposite one of TV’s biggest ratings juggernauts, which brings us neatly to I’m A Celebrity
The War Of The Worlds Pace was sluggish, and special effects looked cheap
Get Me Out Of Here!
Incredibly, this is the 19th series of the show in which famous people, mostly so far below the A-list they don’t even share a letter with a vitamin, have to engage in dangerous trials and eat disgusting
The Crown Princess Margaret is played with scene-stealing relish
things. Roman Kemp, son of Spandau Ballet’s Martin and Shirlie of Pepsi and Shirlie fame, had to munch his way through a bull’s dangly bit, while radio presenter Adele Roberts ate the shaved anus of a pig. As often happens, I was watching this while having a late dinner and with all the enthusiasm of Rafe and Eleanor pretending to see aliens murder their maid.
The big attraction of this year’s IACGMOOH was the casting of Caitlyn Jenner, one of the most famous people in the world since her gender reassignment. Unexpectedly, she had no problem talking about her former life as Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner. She freely admitted she converted a single, albeit spectacular, sporting success into a massive fortune, one that will be augmented to the tune of around €600,000 for her appearance here. She has come across as calm and helpful to the other campmates, especially our own Nadine Coyle, and she is intriguing value for the money spent on hiring her.
As often is the case in Week One, there hasn’t been a huge amount of conflict. There was a bit of a tiff , however, between ex-footballer Ian Wright and Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell and it seems more is brewing. Soap star Jacqueline Jossa looks utterly terrified of everything, not a great idea for anyone who agreed to do the show. Viewers, like many animals at the top of the jungle food chain, can spot weakness and viciously exploit it, so she had better get used to doing trials aplenty.
A whole new set of trials faces Queen Elizabeth in the third series of Netflix’s The Crown. Olivia Colman has stepped into the vacancy left by Claire Foy, and the coquettish youth has been replaced by a steelier and more hardened monarch. We’re in the 1960s now, and the queen is facing up to the loss of her beloved Winston Churchill and the arrival in Downing Street of the bolshy and working-class Harold Wilson. Add in the unmasking of Anthony Blunt, the Master of the Queen’s Pictures, as a long-time spy for the Soviet Union (a fact that was not made public until 1979), the Aberfan tragedy in Wales, and the huge shift in public mores and there finally is some meat on the bones of what previously was an oddly rarefied glimpse at life among the aristocracy.
The pivotal character is Princess Margaret, played with scene-stealing relish by Helena Bonham Carter. Margaret enjoyed every hedonistic pleasure going, as so often is the life of a royal child who never will get the top job. Bound by privilege, but with little actual reward for enduring an existence of absolutely stultifying boredom, they somehow manage to pursue hidden lives that only occasionally make it into the public spotlight.
For Margaret, the bolthole was the Caribbean island of Mustique, where she could pursue her romantic liaisons and drink as much as she liked, and you have to admit it sounds a great deal better than a night out at a Pizza Express in Woking.
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Caitlyn Jenner came across as calm and helpful to other campmates like Nadine Coyle