Surely one doesn't have to watch this drivel? (The One Show)

Member Name: rolletrog

Product:	The One Show
Date:	14/08/09 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I'm struggling to think of one

Disadvantages: Changing channels takes a lot of effort

~~*~~*~~ The One Show ~~*~~*~~

Unfortunately, men are genetically predisposed to clutch the telly remote control close to their chest, guarding it with their life and questioning mere women who'd like to just look at it. They decide what the house will watch regardless of whether they themselves are even at home and treat the remote with such respect that it is often taken to the pub whilst the poor women are stuck at home watching the pure tripe that the men have kindly left on for them. Most of the time, the remote is temptingly left by the man's side whilst he rests his eyes which brings us to the One Show.

~~*~~ It's not the only One ~~*~~

HimIndoors watches some of the dullest and most ridiculous tv ever known to man, such programmes include Holmes on Homes (some Canadian bloke turns broken houses into boring houses) Tight Lines (some bloke goes fishing) The Joy of Painting (Bob Ross, RIP, paints stuff) and Question Time (some bloke pretends to let people ask questions but nobody cares about the answer and yet you're always interested to see if they'll be near you next week). As a worthy addition to this tedious list there is the One Show - half an hour of your life somehow slips away and your brain is somewhat smaller as a result.

~~*~~ The producers are definitely on One ~~*~~

Think 'This Morning' but less entertaining and most definitely less eye-pleasing (I wish Philip lived on my street) and you're almost there. Described as a 'topical magazine show'?!, the content is somewhat varied and random - lord knows where the producers get their ideas from. Due to the fact that it's on every single weekday night (presumably until they completely run out of bizarre stories or the researchers themselves just die of boredom) there's a complete mishmash of yarns thrown in usually with an extremely current affair that they gloss over in a 2 minute short, take for example, the battle between police and knives followed swiftly by the cleverest dogs. The presenters have definitely got their work cut out - Adrian Chiles (from the equally exciting 'Working Lunch' and 'Match of the Day 2' - you can see why they picked him) and Christine Bleakley (a newsreader from Belfast who apparently was on Strictly Come Dancing) try their hardest to smile through the deluge of dreariness and admittedly they do make a fairly good pair - Chiles with his dry Brummy sarcasm and Bleakley with her smiley face is somewhat the saving grace of the programme.

There are many reporters for the programme who vary in their skills in making the drudgery interesting, some vaguely achieve this but in a somewhat questionable decision, the beeb have also decided to let Gyles Brandreth out of care and into the community. The reporters are supposed to specialise in certain areas such as environmental issues or politics, needless to say, Brandreth is merely summarised as a 'reporter' presumably because his specialism is to annoy the pants off people. In particular, it's the guests that suffer as they're forced to sit through the half hour of drivel - not only are they featured for about 4 minutes whilst they promote their latest book/film/tat, they're ambushed with random questions following a 'report' which apparently they've not been briefed about and have no idea what the point of the piece was either.

~~*~~ Once upon a time...~~*~~

Although there is room on the telly for this kind of drivel, it would be more at home on BBC2, on a Sunday at 10am, definitely not on One and definitely not when we're eating our tea and need something of more excitement to watch, however, I may be in the minority as there's supposedly an average of 4 million viewers. Wondrously, there are currently 21 episodes available to watch on iplayer which perhaps is the best way to view it as one could skip through the tedium and condense it all into a riveting 3 and a half minutes. Perhaps I'm being a little cynical - there are plenty of other channels committing the cardinal sin of repeats after repeats after repeats (Dave) and at least Mr B is trying to keep up with current affairs but when the highlight of the programme is Christine overcoming her fear of moths and Vera Lynn's memories of the war, I'm somewhat disheartened by the whole thing. The website is slightly more entertaining with such features like 'Does your baby look like Adrian Chiles?' and 'Do you have body odour or halitosis?'. Top quality reporting.

~~*~~ One more viewer? ~~*~~

If I've whetted your appetite with this one-sided, biased review then please do turn on your telly to channel one at 7pm. Sometimes they even do a special which lasts an hour. It's well worth the licence fee alone.


Thanks for reading.
Review will most definitely appear elsewhere.

Caroline & Pig
August 2009

Both wishing we could watch the Dog Whisperer instead.

Summary: It's dull dull dull.