Come back Bill Oddie, all is forgiven (Springwatch)

Member Name: worst_trip

Product:	Springwatch
Date:	27/05/09 (233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good footage of British wildlife

Disadvantages: Pair of terrible, awful, smackable, anchor presenters

The 2009 run of this series has to count as one of the most ghastly exhibitions of twee Oxbridge BBC TV programmer values I've seen in ages. The presenters they've chosen for it are, in this viewer's opinion, unwatchably awful; this year 'Springwatch' has gone right down the drain as a result.

So in general this is a television show with a pretty good - if peculiarly timed - premise; it is a sort of a 'magazine' show focussing on various segments of live-action and recently recorded footage of (mainly) birds and animals. They look at blue-tit nests; they routinely film live action shots of badgers bumbling about in woodlands at dusk - the programme airs at about 8-9pm in May and June, so it's particularly well timed for this sort of thing. (In fact badgers and their highly appealing cubs are featured so very often on this show that I can practically hear the gnashing of teeth coming from disgruntled dairy farmers across the entire south west.) On paper it all comes across as a laudable celebration of wildlife in the British Isles, and with travel and wildlife shows etc. constantly telling us all we should be walking the Manchu Pichu trail, cage diving with sharks or fighting through tropical rainforest etc., it's about high time too we had some focus on the diversity of species resident in this country.

One of the most bizarre things about Springwatch, until now, has been the timing of it. The show as mentioned airs in late May when spring is all but over; the vernal species featured in it - spawning frog, carpets of bluebells etc. (one of the few plants to regularly make it onto the show) have effectively finished much of their intesting / spectacular activities by this time of year, but of course perhaps this timing allows the progamme makers to build up a backlog of 'previously unseen footage' from earlier in the year to show us later on.

The other odd feature of Springwatch, it's always seemed to me, is the choice of the TV presenter Kate Humble as on of the co-anchors. For years she's presented the programme alongside the well known bird-watcher Bill Oddie, and this made for a toe-curling if not particularly compelling combination. I'm aware of, but not interested enough in Ms Humble to know that she has a fine body of online supporters, as well as detractors and while I certainly don't want to comment on her personally, having watched 'Springwatch' since before she came on it, I find her presenting style to be a rather unfortunate one, and a terrible choice for a programme of this sort. For years I had fancied that she was being oppressed by (what I imagined as being) the tyrrany of Bill Oddie; being cast in the light of very much the 'alpha' TV presenter, Mr Oddie would routinely jump down on Kate Humble's every comment and suggestion with corrections and contradtictions; as a result Ms Humble was rarely, if ever, 'allowed' to contribute any useful facts or information to their live discussions. Her role in the series has always been to ask inane questions along the lines of: 'oh what sort of bird's nest is that, and why are they looking for caterpillars now, do you think, Bill?" (Bluetits, Kate, you saw some just the same last year - we all did - and as always they're feeding their young with the caterpillars, of course.) Honestly, in years and years of her presenting 'Springwatch' it's become increasingly obvious that Kate Humble hasn't - or is pretending not to have - learned a thing.

I take real issue with a female television presenter, in this day and age, continually feigning ignorance of every, single, little, thing. Major or minor, it's all the same - she doesn't know or own up to knowing a darn thing about it. If this approach is being carried out - as it obviously seems to be - with the aim of pandering to an 'older, wise male' patriarchal figure - and if you think this is pro-feminist nonsense, I'd suggest you've never seen Ms Humble in TV-presenting action - I find it bloomin' ridiculous. I mean you wouldn't see Kirsty Wark pretending to know nothing about current affairs on 'Newsnight', would you?

Anyway, Bill Oddie isn't involved in 'Springwatch' this year and I wondered if this would allow his female co-presenter to finally begin to 'shine'. Unfortunately new male presenter - self-satisfied and apparently smug to a ridiculous degree has been located; I don't know the name of the long-haired fellow and don't want to; at first glance he could easily be taken for a slightly slimmed-down version of 'Top Gear's James May, only he has none of James May's apparently genuine charm or charisma - and that's all I'm going to say about that.

This new fellow's excruciating interactions with Kate 'the presenters' doormat' Humble ("what sort of bird's nest is THAT, Long-haired Newguy, and why are they looking for worms now, do you think?") make for an almost unwatchable TV experience in my opinion, and this year I can barely stomach 'Springwatch' - except in practically micro-second doses - otherwise I am in quite genuine danger of throwing something heavy through the television set. That isn't a metaphor or a figure of speech; I have a foolishly-placed large block of granite (an oversized tea-light holder) standing just to one side of the telly and my hands, during 'Springwatch' often itch to hurl it.

Though all this said, there are 'away from base' segments featuring the increasingly watchable Simon King, and even that used-to-be slightly annoying fellow Nick something from 'the Really Wild Show' - but you have to be careful trying to catch them, or you'll end up seeing one of the Humble/Newguy bits.

I did watch in yesterday's show a blessedly presenter-free segment featuring a mother stoat moving her litter across this year's Springwatch HQ carpark in broad daylight - a highly risky strategy this. "We think 'something' must have disturbed her, for her to be moving nest so dangerously as this" the voiceover solemnly concluded, as we watched her ferry the last of the baby stoats to safety. Good grief. Give the viewing public some credit. You don't reckon she was disturbed by a hundred hundred BBC staff and technicians setting up directly outside her bolthole, do you?

Summary: Show's gone downhill this year due to painful 'playful bantering' between above presenters