Peep inside Sophie’s head

DVDs are great! I love buying them, putting them on a shelf and never watching them. But there was some stuff on the new Peep Show Series 5 offering that looked so promising that I actually popped that shiny little disc into that unshiny matt black tray, pushed it in with my very own actual fingers (no pressing the button on the remote for ME) and then – watched it! Unbelievable.

Things you get on this DVD which are amazing include:

» All the episodes of Series 5.

» The final episode told from Sophie’s point-of-view, which reveals some very interesting things about her character (ie she’s just as selfish and manipulative as Mark and Jez – hurrah!).

» A “who’s shagged who” featurette, which is exciting for two reasons – it’s very funny, and you get to see how much older they all look five years down the line, thus making yourself feel a bit less miserable when you catch sight of your own knackered face in the mirror each morning.

» Some other things that we haven’t watched yet, but will definitely watch one day.

It’s all great stuff, plus there’s also a box set of all five series on the go as well, and everyone loves a box set, don’t they? They just look so bloody NICE on the shelf - even if you never get around to taking off the wrapping and the HMV sticker, never mind actually watching them.

Cats, but no cream

QUIZ! 8 out of 10 Cats, Channel 4, 10.00pm

You can tell a telly week is dire when we are resorting to plugging 8 out of 10 Cats. Not because there’s anything especially wrong with the show, but because there is little more to say about it than it’s a game show that’s moderately funny. The internet isn’t even telling me who tonight’s guests are.

Still, expect lots of jokes about Big Brother, politics, the footie and probably this week’s EastEnders, some interesting facts about the Great British Public and some ex-reality stars trying to up their profile by appearing as panellists.

Also on tonight’s telly - a new housemate goes into Big Brother, despite the fact that most viewers are quite happy with the ones we’ve already got, and there are still tons of them in there. Those pesky kids at C4/Endemol just can’t help meddling, can they?

All-time high

OZ! Summer Heights High, BBC Three, 10.30pm

I found myself watching Da Kath and Kim Code unexpectedly the other week; it just happened to be on when I finished watching a DVD, so I sat through what was left of it, giggling at the jokes while resisting the urge to hurl abuse at Barry Humphries for his pro-Jessie ways, but in the sort-of words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was much life left in the format, since there did seem to be a few signs of strain at the seams - and I’m not just talking about Kim’s jeans. There’s no cause for alarm, however, as luck would have it, a good substitute Aussie comedy has arrived to replace it - Summer Heights High.

It’s set in an Aussie comprehensive school and filmed in a mockumentary style, with comedian Chris Lilley playing the three main parts - Jonah Takalua, the obligatory troublemaker (who is so perfectly-observed that he wouldn’t have looked out of place at my old secondary school, with the possible exception of his accent), narcissistic and bitchy drama teacher Mr Gregson (known as Mr G), author of the Tsunami disaster musical set to the songs of Bananarama, Tsunamarama, and by far my favourite, newly transferred Ja’mie King (a character lifted from one of Lilley’s previous projects), a compulsive overachiever who can’t help looking down on her new “povo” surroundings.

The humour is very near the knuckle: for example, there’s one scene where Mr G gives the cameras a tour of the school, pointing out the former location of some lovely bushes which had to be removed because a girl got raped behind them, and Chris Lilley is utterly convincing as all three of the characters - Ja’mie, in particular, is all too realistic. If there’s any justice, this really should be the next big cult comedy hit.

TFI Friday… oh, hang on…

MISPLACED! The Sunday Night Project, Channel 4, 10.00pm

Proving that it isn’t just their lifestyle and makeover shows that come round several times a year, Channel 4 bring us a new series of The Friday Night Project, about five minutes after the last one ended.

Now, I’m sure I can’t be the only one who thinks that this show’s natural home would be after the Friday night Big Brother eviction show, in the same way that slot worked so well for So Graham Norton several years back. But apparently not. Maybe the network didn’t want to have this and 8 Out of 10 Cats scheduled on the same night, which seems odd to me with Friday usually being the time for comedy shows and slightly anarchic magazine shows on 4, but I’m just a viewer, what do I know?

So this new series is now on a Sunday and titled The Sunday Night Project. The new scheduling is either going to be a work of genius or is going to tank horribly.

As for the show itself, well I expect it will be as hit and miss as usual. Its success usually depends on the guest host. The David Tennant episodes (pictured) were fabulous. Particularly the one that Freema was on as well, and the Mariah Carey one was ‘interesting’. Tonight the hosts are Peter Andre and Jordan/Katie Price, who seem a bit 2006, but could be good fun.

So, with Big Brother launching on a Thursday, and now The Sunday Night Project, expect more kerrazy scheduling from the people at 4 in the future. Well, they have to have something to discuss on their monthly discussion forum, The TV Show.

Not sick, but not well

AWKWARD! Peep Show, Channel 4, 10.35pm

Series five of Peep Show has been a triumph. Following series three and four, which some people loved and some people (including Robert Webb, according to a friend of mine who got him to sign his series boxset) dodn’t love so much, this series has been all round good fun.

Yes there have been a few quibbles, such as why Jeremy is even more of an arse than usual, why Sophie has had so little to do, and how much longer two grown men approaching 40 can plausibly behave like students, but for now we’ll let them off and see where series six takes us.

Tonight’s finale will no doubt be a cracker, as Sophie gets more to do, and, most excitingly, Mark and the new best character ever, Dobby, play World of Warcraft together. Perfect. Sophie and the house elf for the win.

It’s all Greek to me

FRATERNITY! Greek, BBC Three, 9.10pm

Given the amount of trails the BBC have been running for Greek over the past few weeks, you would imagine there is plenty to say about it.

However, after a scour of the web (involving spoiler avoidance), the most I have been able to find out about it was pretty much the information given by the TV listings magazines. So I know this: it’s an American comedy drama, set in the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes university and the fraternities and sororities of that university. The central characters are Rusty, a freshman and his older sister Casey (played by Spencer Grammer, daughter of Kelsey).

The series follows the scrapes of the siblings and their friends… and that’s about all I know. Sorry.

I do know that the obligatory spin-off/behind the scenes show, is on after the Thursday repeat, by the way, an act of scheduling far too complex for me to understand.

With Gossip Girl and the upcoming return of 90210 and Joss Whedon’s forthcoming Dollshouse, American beautiful people shows are all the rage. Will Greek be one of the stand-outs? I can’t tell you. Still, the idea of fraternities and sororities conjures up images of Legally Blonde so it’s got to be good, right?

Alice in pain?

HEARTY! Love Soup, BBC One, 10.25pm

Poor old Alice. Stuck in a world with a completely different set of moral values to her own, being forced to sub-let her Brighton flat in order to be able to continue to pay the mortgage AND work in London, having been on the brink of meeting her perfect man after communicating through a lonely hearts’ column only for their first meeting to be scuppered by fate before it ever happened, constantly privy to the sexual misadventures of junior colleagues Milly and Cleo, held at knifepoint during a driving lesson, positioned almost directly beneath the woman who threw herself from the roof of her department store, caricatured in a pilot for a BBC Three cartoon series, living with a beautiful but increasingly insecure and vindictive actress, and faced with a seemingly endless stream of not entirely suitable male ‘prospects’ including a media mogul, a college friend, a revolutionary, a guillotine-maker, a film star, a necrophiliac and, on a longer-term basis, mild-mannered comedy writer Douglas McVitie, who, last week, accepted an offer of six weeks’ work in Tuscany with wayward actor Marty Cady and his pretty, sensitive young wife Denise, a major fan of Douglas’s work and, by extension, of Douglas himself. She’s not had it easy, you know.

In soup terms (hmmm), the second series of Love Soup has been more Campbell’s Condensed than the exhausting swim through an all-you-can-eat cash-and-carry industrial-sized vat of Heinz Tomato that was the first series. With Michael Landes gone, episodes were trimmed to a bite-sized half-hour, which initially led to early installments feeling a little light on plot and actual incidents/stuff. While  Alice and Gil’s separate adventures in the first series dovetailed neatly and sustained an hour of television as a combined story, it was questionable whether either character would be able to carry a series on their own. However, David Renwick’s masterstroke was to gradually introduce elements of Gil’s world into Alice’s life, initially through his TV producer friend Lloyd Drewitt, through whom Alice went on to meet Douglas and, by association, actress (and later flatmate) Fae Maddison. As Alice’s thrillsy new media acquaintances jostled for attention with longstanding colleagues Milly and Cleo, the series became less formulaic and Alice’s story took on a life of its own, with characters from all walks of life crossing her path, seeking her advice, or (more often) confiding slightly more information than she was entirely comfortable with. The half-hour format actually ended up suiting the series far better, with episodes picking up pace and some the elaborately-conceived subplots coming to head with a simple sight gag borne from a lengthy set-up, shaggy-dog style. As new characters meandered into Alice’s orbit, they took a central role and helped to carry the story as well, and the twelve-week run (in British comedy series terms, the equivalent of watching Audrey, Gail, Sarah-Lou, Bethany AND Bethany Junior’s lives in their entirety) helped create a real sense of the whole scope of Alice’s life and experiences broadening, even if, from her perspective, unexpected things just happened to her and she just sort of got on with it. What a trooper!

But how will it end tonight? As Alice considers Douglas’s fidelity (or otherwise) while he steadfastly remains in Tuscany and fails to call home, Lloyd considers whether it’s worth staying alive or not after his wife finds out about the toe-job and subsequent night of passion he shared with armless television executive Maxine (a fantastic wide-eyed turn from Helen Lederer last week). Will they be drawn together by the memory of Gil? Or is there a future for Alice and Douglas, despite his obvious attraction to Denise and the fact that Alice isn’t very enthusiastic about their relationship? One increasingly unlikely-looking possibility is that, despite all the indications to the contrary, Gil DIDN’T actually die the night he was due to meet Alice, and in fact there was some other complicated and frustrating reason why he had to vanish and hasn’t been seen since. There have been references to blind dates dying. And mentions of awful things happening to Gil. But nobody has actually said ‘Gil is dead’. Obviously he’s not going to pop up at the end and whisk Alice off into the sunset (will he? No, he won’t. Or will he? Of course not. Will he, though? NO.) but, well, you never know. (NO.)

A short essay in favour of juvenile smut

SWEARY! The Inbetweeners, E4, Thursdays, 10.00pm

Earlier this month, we wondered if E4’s teen sitcom The Inbetweeners would be much cop, or just a load of childish, gross-out smut with lots of unnecessary swearing. I’m happy to report that it ended up being both, and Actually Quite Good. Episode two was a particular treat, featuring as it did a girl in a wheelchair being hit in the face with a frisbee, and a drunken teenage boy projectile-vomiting over a small child. That’s entertainment!

This week, one of the boys finally gets some action, as Will finds himself on the receiving end of the charms of Charlotte Hinchcliffe, a fellow student who is reputed to be of somewhat easy virtue.

While he’s busy trying to impress her, Jay bumps into an old friend from when he had trials at West Ham with that never really happened – much to the disgust of his mates.

Don’t worry if you’ve not seen any episodes so far – the premise is really simple (four teenage twats make twats of themselves), and I promise you won’t find everyone in it really annoying.

Scrubs up a treat

MEDICAL! Scrubs, E4, 9.00pm
Scrubs is one of those strange shows that sort of flies under the radar in terms of the publicity it gets (at least on anything but E4 itself) and yet has an incredibly large, incredibly loyal fan base.

It’s also pretty remarkable in that it’s kept its central cast by and large intact throughout, even though Zach Braff in particular has had a lot of other projects on the go since the series began.

Although it’s a show I have only ever dipped in and out of, I think I must be in the minority because everyone I know seems to absolutely adore it. Tonight sees the start of the seventh season hit E4 (and no doubt it will then be repeated ad nauseum a la Friends so don’t fret too much if you miss it). At one stage this was announced as being the final season of the sitcom, but an eighth series has now been confirmed (moving from NBC to ABC for those who are interested in such matters).

Tonight’s opener sees Elliot about to marry the slightly dull Keith - but have her feelings for JD really dissipated? Either way, I’m assuming a sunset ending is still some way off…

Meera’s back, Denise’s front and Geri’s… shaft?

TODAY’S ENTERTAINMENT SNIPPETS

Meera Syal has been wandering around the building I work in today, and some basic nosiness has revealed she is here rehearsing a new BBC2 sitcom. Beautiful People is set in Reading in 1997, and is based on the childhood memoirs of window dresser and taste maker Simon Doonan as he tries to claw his way out of suburban hell to enjoy life with the “beautiful people”. Olivia Coleman from Peep Show is in it too. » Denise Van Outen has revealed that she turned down an offer of £1m to pose nude in Playboy magazine. There’s definitely a joke in there somewhere, probably involving the phrase “Get Them Outen”, but it would be crass and obvious to actually make it. » And finally, in the week’s least interesting development (so far) Geri Halliwell was briefly stuck in a lift yesterday, but was freed shortly afterwards with the minimum of fuss.

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