The endless appeal of the world’s end...
THE WORLD IS ending. You didn’t realise? TV thinks so. At least three shows were set at the end of days last week, with one – a new comedy – desperately hoping they were there already. Sitcom Everyone Else Burns (Channel 4, Monday) is ploughing the same furrow as Father Ted but could use a Father Dougal as soon as he’s available for a few more laughs. It does however star the very accomplished Simon Bird from the sorely missed Friday Night Dinner which, alas, it was nothing like – for obvious reasons!
Bird’s Christian end-of-the-worlder is training up his family for the Apocalypse by marching his kids up a hill in the middle of the night. “You get biscuits after the moon’s turned to blood,” he tells hangry son Aaron. And when the daughter gets three As at school, she gets the fire and brimstone treatment as she’s clearly not doing enough preaching!
The other thing you can’t help noticing is that Bird sports the most baked-in pudding bowl hairstyle ever. It brings him slightly closer to God.
As a family comedy, it might just be a winner – and if many prayers are answered in the meantime. To bring you back to earth – what’s left of it – there was more than enough tension as The Last Of Us (Sky Atlantic, Monday) continued.
The gang of three is now one fewer.
Tess (Anna Torv) selflessly selfimmolated after she’d been bitten by one of those infernal fungi-loving humans. To make things worse, she was “kissed” by one, too.
Not a pleasant moment in this spectacular horror epic.
The third programme to dwell in the doldrums of dystopia was
Lockwood & Co (Netflix), a promising fantasy adventure which brings together most shows/films of this ilk, including Ghostbusters, Sherlock, Stranger Things and even The Ghost of Mrs Muir.
That said it was thoroughly entertaining – and even the spooks had menace.
Deep Fake Neighbour Wars on streaming service ITVX is a frightening experience, not least for those who are being impersonated.
New technology means you can now “fake”, quite accurately, the face of a real celebrity. Indeed, let’s hope it never ends up in the hands of a TV production company. I expected a 21st-century Spitting Image: I got a 21st-century spluttering flop.
Who would you choose as your first fake celebrity? I thought Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer? We got Kim Kardashian and
Idris Elba, and then Conor Mcgregor and Ariana Grande. Why not Rishi and Conor?
We also had a cameo from Greta Thunberg – it was enough to make you glue yourself to a motorway.
In this improbable comedy world, Elba was living with Kim Kardashian in a
ROBSON Green has discovered the virtues of working
from home. His Robson Green Weekend Escapes (BBC Two, Monday), with random celebs, struggled to get out of the North-east last week. Stunning though the scenery is, it might be a good idea to try other counties – we haven’t seen Cornwall for days! – and get celebrities from other regions. I know he’s proud of the area, but I tend to get my North-east hit from Vera’s weekly Land Rover tour with sidekick Aidan (ITV, Sunday). And a little less about your family too. I feel I know them so well now – and we’ve never even been
introduced!
shared house but they just weren’t getting along. She was sunbathing – he didn’t like it. She was using a paddling pool – he didn’t like it. Feel free to laugh at any point.
There was one moment when Elba was trying to go through a door with a pushchair held horizontally. Elba fell over. I laughed. Half an hour for one pratfall.
In the real world, is Jason Watkins one of our best actors? In anyone’s top five? After Harold Wilson in The Crown, and Winston Churchill in SAS Rogue
Heroes, he is now playing a grieving father in the thriller The Catch (C5, Wednesday), who is now also having to contend with a strange young man (Aneurin Barnard) stealing his daughter’s affections.
This has caused Watkins’s character to do those embarrassing things dads must do, such as tailing your daughter’s boyfriend until he appears to pick up a kerb crawler. Only the truth is not that simple. Elsewhere, the superb Brenda
Fricker plays his mother-in-law who is facing the realities of dementia as she wanders off without telling anyone.
It may feel too real for many.
Watkins is as malevolent as he can get in this drama, which is completely unpredictable after only one episode.
Finally, Love Island (ITV2, nightly) has found the tonic for flagging ratings in its winter series. Draft in two Aussies from the Down Under version. Strewth! Is that even allowed, mate?
Jess and Aaron have settled in with a form of the English language to delight many. “I don’t want to get myself into a ‘situationship’,” argued Aaron. New male friends nodded along, not stopping to ask, “What on earth do you mean?” But that’s got nothing on the first-ever series of Aussie Love Island when a contestant coined “kangatarian”, as someone who jumps at the chance to eat the beloved national marsupial.