It’s the start of a new decade, and Channel 4 is taking radical steps to ensure its reality and factual television reflects the new era, with the demise of stalwarts like Wife Swap and Big Brother. However, when it comes to drama, it seems to be business as usual with many old favourites returning – and when I say old favourites I generally mean things that used to be good but are well past their best.
Tonight sees the sixth series of Desperate Housewives and as a long-term viewer, I find myself (as with Heroes) conflicted as to whether I’m looking forward to it or slightly dreading it. It’s that same feeling of having invested a lot of time in a show and feeling obliged to continue but not quite being sure if it’s worth that investment any longer. I’m excited by the prospect of more Mrs McLuskey and the new family includes Drea de Matteo, which has got to be good, hasn’t it? I did think that about Alfre Woodard though, and look how that whole mess turned out. I’m not excited about more Susan or more Mike or by what I’ve heard they might do to Katherine this season, given that increasingly this show has felt like it’s about Poor Lynette, awesome Katherine whom the scriptwriters hate, Bree who used to be awesome and now is a bit lost, and those other two skinny whiny bitches nobody actually likes that much.
Last night saw the seventh series of Shameless. In days of yore, Channel 4 dramas would only make two, possibly three series. Then Teachers came along and its abysmal fourth series proved why Channel 4 dramas hadn’t gone on longer. Shameless hasn’t done much to disprove the theory that three series of a C4 drama is plenty (it’ll be interesting to see if Skins, which returns tomorrow can change the pattern). Whilst series 4-6 were vaguely watchable, they’d lost a lot of the punch of the early series: perhaps it’s inevitable when any drama goes on too long that it starts to feel stale. The series seven opener featured promise in terms of the development of not-so-likkle-anymore Liam, Mo Butcher playing Frank’s sort-of-mum Nin, and for those that don’t feel queasy about it given he’s been in it since he was a kid, several gratuitous shots of Carl with his top off. A hammy guest turn by Pauline McLynn was vaguely enjoyable but the old clips of Sheila and Frank were badly judged as they simply served to remind you of past glories. The Jamie/Joe/Karen storyline of tedium looks set to ruin this series as much as it did the previous one as well. It’s too early to say whether it’s going to pick up but the trailer for episode two wasn’t all that inspiring.
Perhaps, as with their reality/factual programming, it’s time for Channel 4 to put some old drama series to bed and leave them in the 2000s where they belong, and come up with some new innovative shows…
What do you think about the new episodes of Shameless and Desperate Housewives? You know where the comments box is…
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Hmm, I can’t comment on Desperate Housewives as I gave up on that one long ago (though Drea de Matteo sounds like an interesting addition, but then maybe I’m just thinking of her character in Sopranoes? that would be too cool!) but I did watch Shameless as I’m a long term(ish) fan. Anyway, I wonder if it’s the anticipation of a new series that makes us all raise our expectations to unrealistic levels where there is no hope of them being met. The only reason I say this was I was fed up with Shameless after a dismal series a couple of years ago (series 3?), so when I started watching the next series to be televised I was expecting more gumph and it ended up being ace!
Well, circle goes around and I agree, I thought this one was a bit limp. To be fair though, I will never forget the beautiful James McAvoy … wasn’t he just stunning?