The Home of Python (Paramount Comedy Channel)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Paramount Comedy Channel
Date:	12/04/04 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Has exclusive rights to some excellent comedy, Easily accessible- not a premium channel

Disadvantages: Very much a mixed bag: plenty of programmes that won't appeal

Over Christmas my 21st century family got with it, and installed a Sky Digital service. Being the smug young man with one friend that I am, I had already experienced its pleasures over the last three years round my friend?s house, but had never experienced Channel 127: Paramount.


PROGRAMME& #83; & SCHEDULING

Paramount is almost exclusively a comedy channel, and one that screens the shows that other channels haven?t already claimed through the rule of ?baggsy.? British classics range from the ever-present, but infuriatingly late runs of ?Monty Python?s Flying Circus? to more modern and low-budget affairs such as the Comedy Store and ?Time Gentlemen Please.? Weekends on Paramount, at least late at night, feature plenty of live comedy and through the rule of not fixing an unbroken thing, live shows of Lee Evans show at 9pm almost every week.

The above mix of British comedy is what attracts me to Paramount, and causes me to waste precious evenings of my life in front of channel 127. As with every other channel in history however, the daytime schedule is unfortunately dire. I?m sure ?M*A*S*H? has plenty of dedicated viewers but it?s not something I enjoy sitting down to watch, while Michael J. Fox?s ?hilarious? ?Spin City? never deserves a screening. ?Happy Days? and ?Robin?s Nest? fans are also catered for.

One of the channel?s major selling points is its array of high-budget, popular US comedies. These shows will doubtless attract the channel many viewers and allow it to remain present, however I would literally rather take my own life than watch an episode of ?Sex & the City? or ?All McBeal.? Literally. Well, I would wound myself
at least. Earlier in the afternoon, the channel also shows the less risqué but equally poor ?Third Rock from the Sun? and the intellectual boredom of ?Frasier,? ?Becker? and ?Seinfeld.?

Late night also finds time to bring out some truly terrible short programmes such as ?Bill Plymton Shorts?: literally a ten-minute screening of some newspaper cartoon images with pauses for reading. Oh dear.


FILMS

Of course, we the general public mostly associate the Paramount logo with films. The Star Trek films have already been bought by Sci-Fi and terrestrial channels, but a healthy mix of American and British comedies often litters the prime time slots. For me, the highlight is the ?Naked Gun? series starring Leslie Nielsen, and fans will be pleased to hear that the channel regularly shows ?Police Squad,? the early eighties comedy series it was based upon. For me, this is where the appeal ends, however any fans of the ?Beverly Hills Cop? movies is very well catered for, as these seem to be on every single Friday. Please don?t hold me to that. My Dad would also enjoy the awful ?Confessions? films ? yes, those rude, Benny Hill-esque features starring Robin Asquith ? and these are shown acceptably late in the night.


AVAILABIL& #73;TY

Paramount is classed as a popular and regular channel, and as such is included in all basic Sky Digital and Telewest packages. If you don?t have access to Paramount, you can simulate its effects by recording Channel 4?s late night US import shows, buying some Lee Evans and Monty Python DVDs and finally digging out your mum?s tapes of ?Happy Days? for a Paramount night in.


VE
;RDICT

I apologise if my overwhelmingly negative of all but a few programmes have offended readers, or simply caused boredom, but I can?t condone these kind of shows. If Paramount was allowed access to more classic British comedy owned by UK Gold ? Fawlty Towers and Dad?s Army would go down a treat, although I still wouldn?t watch the latter ? it would be a much more deserving channel, but at present its mix of American and British comedies seems too juxtaposed to really work. Paramount 2 is a nice addition, despite the fact that it doesn?t have any unique programmes, but has been known to show popular programmes at a more accessible time; earlier this year it screened Monty Python an hour before the main Paramount channel at 11.20pm.

Paramount is a good channel for broad-minded comedy fans, but for people with specific tastes such as mine it can only satisfy on a limited number of occasions. No matter how many hundreds of channels are introduced, there has not been a channel invented that provides high quality TV during the day.

Summary: