Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn

by Charlie Brooker

  The plot follows the time-honoured Casualty formula – it lifts emotive storylines from the tabloids and gives them a gentle twist in a faintly patronising bid to point out that, hey, there’s more to these things than meets the eye.

  So, for this opening episode, a schoolboy appears to be playing truant, but there’s more to it than meets the eye: he’s been abducted. For a while a suspected local paedophile is in the frame, but there’s more to him than meets the eye too: he’s not a paedophile. ‘I was named and shamed by a newspaper,’ he complains, as a brick flies through his living-room window courtesy of a hastily assembled mob (who doubtless heard about him in a 60second news bulletin, but haven’t yet learned that there’s more to these things than meets the eye because the newsreader didn’t have time to explain that bit).

  Thus, we are sternly instructed that believing in crudely demonised stereotypes can lead to hysterical knee-jerk behaviour – although in order to make this point, the anti-paedo mob leader is portrayed as a one-dimensional cartoon thug who gets excited at the prospect of beating up a female officer.

  Still, never mind, eh? You’re too busy for subtleties: at least it gets the point across quickly. Besides, who’s got time to complain? Or listen to me moan about it? Not you: you’re still in your pants. Put some clothes on.

  You Are Nothing [21 July]

  Got a lava lamp? Then pick it up, unplug it, and hurl it into the nearest bin immediately, because Space (BBC1) has just rendered it pathetically obsolete. If you enjoy sitting in the corner of your living room dribbling and staring, this is for you.

  Space, you see, is an all-new BBC spectacular in the Walking with Dinosaurs mould, permeated with magnificent computer-generated visuals from beginning to end. Almost too magnificent, in fact. Despite being clearly aimed at ‘all the family’, there really ought to be a parental advisory warning at the beginning. This is going to make children’s tiny minds pop like cherry tomatoes on an overheated griddle.

  Why? Because it’s possibly the most hallucinatory programme ever broadcast.

  Sam Neill is our host, standing in front of a ‘Virtual Space Zone’ – a sort of notional cubic viewing portal in which computer-generated images of the universe appear. With it he can conjure up brain-bending images of black holes and billowing nebulae, or reach inside to pluck entire suns from the heavens and toss asteroids around like pebbles, all in a bid to educate us in the ways of the cosmos. Jon Snow would kill to use one on election night.

  It’s all genuinely impressive stuff, with one potentially negative side effect: an entire generation of kids is going to grow up convinced that Sam Neill is a colossal soothsaying deity with the power to manipulate all universal matter, so if they ever catch him in a late-night showing of Attack Force Z (1981), it’s really going to mess with their heads. Still, the content itself should do enough damage anyway. This first episode deals with the origins of the universe, and is impressively information-heavy. Plus there are more extravagant CGI simulations of interstellar phenomena than you can shake a joss stick at. At one point I got up to go for a piss and missed the entire creation of the Earth.

  The programme does a fine job of sprinkling awe-inspiring croutons of information throughout the soup of intergalactic visuals, courtesy of a few interjections from real astronomers based in the real world. (You know they’re proper astronomers because, like all astronomers in all space documentaries ever, they’re introduced with a brief clip which shows them staring into the sky. Because that’s what astronomers do, see? Thank God they’re not proctologists or there’d be some tough calls to make in the edit suite.)

  Anyway, the astronomers do a sterling job of blasting your cranium apart in a pop-science wow-factor kind of way, nonchalantly pointing out that every single atom around you was created within an exploding star, in a manner that makes you feel strangely exhilarated and dismally insignificant all at once. It’s a bit like staring at a beautiful 1,600-foot flaming neon sign that reads ‘YOU ARE NOTHING’.

  Space is aimed unapologetically at the home-cinema crowd; the hordes of viewers who’ve used digital widescreen TVs, DVD players and bone-shaking surround-sound systems to turn their living rooms into the domestic equivalent of a theme-park ride. And this is no bad thing: most of the time these cathode-ray wonderwalls are being used to spoon-feed thundering Hollywood thickotain-ment into the eyes of gurgling dimwits; at least the high-tech majesty of Space might prompt the upcoming generation to ponder the heavens for 30 minutes (which isn’t to say Tinseltown’s DVD blockbusters can’t also have a profound effect on the viewer – Gone in 60 Seconds in particular forced me to seriously question God’s sanity).

  It’s surprising ITV hasn’t latched on to the public’s thirst for state-of-the-art eyeball thrills: given the same technology it would create an impossible edition of ‘The World’s Scariest Police Chases’ in which blazing cars, driven by long-dead Hollywood superstars, swerve in and out of giant lap dancers’ backsides. In 3D. On the moon. Which then explodes. Twice.

  It’s only a matter of time. But meanwhile, before such corruption arrives, families across the nation can enjoy the far-out hoo-hah of Space. And it really is far-out. At the end, Sam Neill turns to camera to blow younger viewers’ minds one last time with a neat summation. ‘Next time someone asks where you’re from,’ he intones, ‘tell them you came from outer space – created in the heart of a star.’ Then the screen goes all wobbly and he freaks out to some wild psychedelic guitar.

  No, not really. But almost.

  ‘What’s in kidney beans?’ [28 July]

  It’s over. Now it’s time for the Big Brother awards. Without further ado, the results are as follows:

  Biggest Time-waster: Josh.

  Before being voted in, Josh promised to make sparks fly. In the event, he proved to be as effective a catalyst as a lump of cotton wool in a bowl of milk. What a waste of premium-rate phone calls: simply tossing a plank over the fence and asking the contestants to give it a name could have generated a more notable eleventh contestant. Prick.

  Most Ubiquitous Humdrum Image: the sight of Dean, mudslide of apathy, slowly osmosing into his deckchair.

  To be fair, whenever Dean actually made the effort to open his mouth he was consistently amusing, but most of the time he seemed to exist on a different plane to the others; in attendance yet somehow invisible – like the omnipresent cameramen behind the glass.

  Lord alone knows what he’s going to do after leaving the house. Given that he’s universally viewed as an inexhaustible source of suffocating, enthusiasm-sapping indifference, there’s little chance of him cashing in on his ‘celebrity status’. Can you imagine Dean opening a supermarket or posing for a Rear of the Year photo alongside Denise Van Outen? Of course not. In fact, it’s easier to imagine Peter Sissons doing it. Go on, picture it. See? See?

  Still, Dean can always find employment as a Cadaver-Gram. He’s welcome round here provided he leaves that poxy guitar at home.

  Most Mesmerising: Helen, whose sweet-natured dimness was a miracle to behold.

  An e-mail collecting Helen’s dumbest utterings is currently sweeping the nation’s inboxes – favourites include ‘I probably sound Welsh on the telly’ and two stunning food-related questions: ‘Is there chicken in chickpeas?’ and ‘What’s in kidney beans?’

  Here’s an exchange that didn’t actually take place, but easily could have:

  HELEN (pointing at the sky): What’s that?

  DEAN: The sky.

  HELEN: Ahhhh. (Pause.) That’s clever, inn-titt?

  Quickest Fall from Grace: Bubble.

  In the house, Bubble quickly became one of my favourites, thanks to his unapologetic lack of glamour. The best thing about Bubble was pointing out to horrified Observer-reading, Alessi-owning friends that although he sounded like a yobbanoidal Club 18–30 sperm generator, if you actually listened to the words, his intelligent wit shone through. But not for long. Once evicted, he was immediately transformed into an icon of despair-i
nducing tabloid mediocrity, courtesy of the Sun (who seemed to own him so completely it’s tempting to believe he was a News International stooge all along, grown in a Petri dish beneath Dominic Mohan’s desk prior to broadcast).

  There he was, on the front page every day, waggling his tongue around like a gigantic leering bumwit, turning his own face into visual shorthand for tits-and-lager buffoonery, when in reality he could chair a debate amongst the nation’s wiliest politicians and easily come out on top. Hope he got paid handsomely before they tired of him.

  Plummiest Emma Thompson Lookalike in a Stupid Purple Jumper: Elizabeth.

  Special Award for Services to Dreariness: Paul (pronounced ‘Po’).

  Po was so dreary, his mouth acted as a gateway to an entire dimension of tedium – a dimension swirling with blank observations, dull anecdotes and self-centred pronouncements. Plus he resembled a fish. Almost silent to begin with, at some point around week three he finally opened his expressionless mouth and lifeless words began spilling out like molten tarmac, eventually coating everything in a thick layer of mundane cheerlessness. No wonder they kept nominating him: nine weeks in a house with Po must’ve felt like being slowly pummelled to death with boredom mallets.

  Ach. Whatever. Big Brother’s over, but it’s not the end of the world. Is it?

  Actually, yes: you can watch Earth being vaporised by the Vogons in a welcome repeat of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (showing all week on BBC2), or for old-school cataclysm fun, catch Ancient Apocalypse (BBC2), this week investigating the spectacularly miserable demise of the ancient Minoans, who apparently became so psychologically disturbed by the aftermath of an almighty volcanic eruption they took to killing and eating their own children – eventually becoming so depraved they didn’t even bother adding seasoning.

  Disgraceful.

  An Animated Dustbin [4 August]

  For God’s sake, watch Cheaters (C5), because it’s absolutely flabbergasting. As trashy experiences go, it’s on a par with staring into a dustbin full of used contraceptives. An animated dustbin. With its own theme tune.

  Here’s the idea: members of the general public who suspect their sweethearts of sexual disloyalty contact the show, which then runs a covert surveillance operation on their behalf, tracking their partners for several weeks in a bid to uncover the grisly truth.

  And it’s certainly a grisly truth, of course: conveniently enough, the undercover camera crew always seems to end up following a love rat with a penchant for open-air fumbling. Not that the resultant shakycam footage is in the slightest bit titillating, mind: the wrongdoers in question are, by and large, unspeakably ugly – so ugly, it’s sometimes hard to tell which way up they are. You have to look for the teeth and work it out from there. Seeing them paw each other up is like watching two warthogs slowly melt together in a microwave oven.

  To be fair, their deceived partners tend to be even uglier: in the very first week there was one that looked like John Merrick in a wig. Her eyes were pointing so far apart in opposing directions, she could probably see in 4D. Plus she had a goatee beard. And a blowhole.

  Prodding the ugly-buglies in front of the cameras is our esteemed host, a fittingly sleazy, cupboard-sized scuzzball called Tommy Grand. Grand is truly awesome to behold: creeping through proceedings dressed in black, looking for all the world like a cross between Tom Hanks and a Las Vegas magician gone bad, practising a neat line in pretending vaguely to give a shit about the whirlwind of emotional distress he’s unleashing. He probably lives in a cave lined with leather and chains. Bet he walks on all fours when nobody’s looking.

  Anyway. Once the adulterous evidence has been assembled, it’s time to arrange the programme’s main event: a confrontation in which the cheater gets caught in the act. This is the moment when the production team rolls up its sleeves and gleefully plumbs levels of nigh-on apocalyptic tackiness.

  First there’s a ‘pre-bust briefing’ in which a humourless gung-ho director called Jaaaahrrrn, who looks like he’d be more at home unleashing napalm, meets with the camera crew in order to map out the forthcoming ‘sting’. Everyone (Grand included) wears earpieces, in a peculiarly successful bid to make themselves look all hard and important. Then, accompanied by several burly security guards with log-sized forearms, Grand, Jaaarrrhn and the camera-gimps meet with the deceived partner in order to confront them with the videotaped evidence.

  ‘I hate to show this to ya,’ Grand mutters, shaking his head with feigned dismay, simultaneously shielding the camcorder display from the glaring sun so the weeping victim can get a better look at a shot of her husband’s backside rising and falling in the back seat of a pick-up. Once the victim’s stopped crying (and their phlegm-encrusted blowhole’s been unclogged and wiped clean), Grand pulls out his ace: he offers them the opportunity to catch their partner in the act.

  ‘They’re actually together right now,’ he mutters. ‘Do you wanna go see ’em?’

  Inevitably, the blubbering wretch nods. And if they didn’t, you half-suspect Grand might pull a gun and force them to take part anyway. An inevitable car-crash of emotions follows, generally ending with one or more parties wandering lost in the wilderness of a sun-baked car park, while the camera crew circles around like a shoal of cycloptic piranha fish, gobbling up every tiny frown and shudder.

  Channel Five can get their imports right: take CSI, for instance. CSI stands for Crime Scene Investigation, and it revolves around a police forensics unit in sin-soaked, sun-baked Las Vegas. Judging by the number of perfect jawlines and cool contemporary haircuts in attendance, ‘Funky Corpse-Prodding Squad’ would’ve been a better title, but never mind: CSI may be needlessly glamorous, but it’s also nimble and slick, and as efficient an entertainment engine as you’ll find on any network. Give it a go: it’s worth it.

  And if you find the cast unbearably good-looking, you can always stare at the cadavers instead. They’re great: all green and gnarled and knobbly, with their eyes popping out and their tongues hanging down like wet socks. Much like the sad sacks on Cheaters, in fact.

  Phantom Flan Flinger for a day [25 August]

  You want to reminisce about the 100 Greatest Kids’ TV Shows (C4)? Go right ahead. But don’t be surprised if I don’t join in. Don’t be surprised if I sit smugly in the corner, listening to you jabber your memories at anyone who’ll listen. You’re small beer, sunshine. I was in the thick of it. I was there, on the ground. I was the Tiswas Phantom Flan Flinger. For a day.

  The occasion was a photo shoot in Trafalgar Square for the launch of a Tiswas compilation video. I’d been roped in to ‘be’ the Flinger by a PR company who’d called the student bar asking for volunteers. Turn up, they said, and bring loads of friends and you’ll meet Sally James and you’ll get to throw water and custard pies around – it’ll be amazing. As a child who licked the screen with excitement whenever Tiswas came on, I couldn’t refuse. Plus they were offering £20, and at the time I was living off those chocolate-flavoured milkshakes that come in a can – not the diet drinks, but the ‘healthy’ ones full of minerals that exist solely to stop students starving to death in our cities. (Pros: they’re cheap, they contain all the basic nutrients you need to prevent the onset of scurvy, and they fill your stomach for hours. Cons: After four days you start belching bubbles of sugary vomit whenever you move. And your piss turns the colour of a fluorescent-yellow highlighter pen.)

  Anyway, there I was, standing in Trafalgar Square, posing for photographs with Chris Tarrant, Sally James and Bob Carolgees. Nirvana. Except I was a rubbish Flinger. I was far too skinny: the milkshake diet had left me resembling a ghost-train skeleton, so the skin-tight costume dangled forlornly off my bony limbs, like an outsize condom engulfing a Twiglet. Worse still, Tarrant took me gently aside at the start of the photo shoot and, after insensitively mocking my slenderness, muttered that if I actually coated him in ‘flan’ (as the assembled paparazzi demanded), my bollocks would be ‘hanging from a lamp post’. As a result, I was the most p
athetic creature imaginable: a quaking, undernourished Phantom Flan Flinger too frightened to actually Fling.

  This all took place ten years ago. Ten years ago, when pub conversations about Tiswas and Swap Shop and Mr Benn and fingerbobs were still a relative novelty. Ten years ago, and the same nostalgia engine’s still running, still maintained by the same box-mad generation who’ve spent the whole of their 20s dementedly remembering Bagpuss and aren’t about to stop now every kids’ TV show in memory has been discussed, dissected, debated and double-penetrated to the point of hospitalisation. We should grow tails and chase them. Actually, drink enough of those milkshakes and you do grow a tail.

  Anyway, from vestigial tails to fascist regimes, and Secret History: Television in the Third Reich (C4), a spooky documentary collating footage shot by German television crews between 1935 and 1944. What’s remarkable is how similar to today’s television it all is. The coverage of the 1936 Nuremberg Rally, in particular, with its endless tracking shots and embarrassingly servile whispered commentary, falls eerily close to the BBC’s interminable live broadcasts of dull and pointless royal ceremonies (the sort of programme that, if it had an aroma, would invariably smell like musty books and colonels’ trousers.) There are also cookery programmes (recipes provided by the Nazi Party), light-entertainment shows (largely feel-good ditties celebrating hare-brained Nazi schemes), early stabs at televised drama (not bad, but not a patch on Heartbeat either, and rather distractingly full of Nazis), and a haunting programme showing amputee soldiers hopping through an assault course that was insanely supposed to cheer people up. There’s even a bland daytime TV lookalike broadcast from a roof garden – it’s a bit like This Morning, but the hosts say ‘Heil Hitler’ quite a lot. Hypnotic.