Plissken

JPickford has superb blather control.

Neil Fitzmaurice.

Don't worry, I'm sure ITV will find a way to ripoff morons, but creatively. I can't believe anyone is trying to justify this shite on anything other than an artistic level. Call TV exists purely to take money from idiots. "Think you are funny? Why not tell jokes, and the audience can gong you off within two minutes. Oh, and they'll be set up like a bear pit. And you'll be in a cage. Whats wrong? Why don't you want to do it? Oh come on, you'll be on telly and that's what you want, right?"

Beard?

Dragnet is fucking ace.

Ach. You're all fucking soulless.

How utterly bloody brilliant was that? If you didn't see it, it was a retelling of the last days of Christ, set in Manchester, filmed live around various parts of the city centre, set to songs from Manchester bands. It sounds a bit pretentious, but it was so superbly put together -and the songs really made it. For example, the Last Supper was sung to "Love Will Tear Us Apart", Judas' betrayal set to Blue Monday (How does it feel? To treat me like you do?) and the crowd freed Barabbas to which Jesus responded with "Wonderwall" and stared at the crowd singing I don't believe that anybody, feels the way I do about you now. Stunning.

More4 is supposed to show the more "intelligent" Channel 4 stuff. Considering GW is pseudo-intelligent as its most smug, then I suppose it is the ideal home for it. Having said that, mention of Two Pints, Hyperdrive and My Hero means that GW cannot be the worst telly programme ever. Christ, I've just realised it is not even the worst "comedy".

Anyone who doesn't love this game deserves every piece of generic, licensed, gangsta-filled, urban, "street", "edgy", GTA clone that they fucking get.

Green Wing is a festering pile of Notting Hill/Hoxton based ego-wankery. The fact that it has someone in it called Julian Rhind-Tutt marks it out as something to be avoided. The actors, the producers and the writers are so irredeemably pleased with themselves that the smugness pervades every single frame. Someone pointed out that for a hospital based comedy, there is not one black character. I replied that one will pop up, purely to be racially abused (but don't worry, its not racist, its ironic and therefore thats OK) by the middle of the series. Apparently I was three shows late. Much as I like Mark Heap plays the same character he always does - he "doesn't get away with it by being weird". All that the slowing down/speedup crap does is disguise that Green Wing is 30 minutes of sketches with some slight character development. Well so was Russ Abbots Fucking Madhouse. It serves no effect but to pad out several minutes of each show instead of forcing the writers to write actual jokes. But no, I'm not allowed to say that because C4s fucking defenders will say its "ironic" and "innovative". Any effect I can replicate on a twenty year old VCR is not innovative. Green Wing is a fine example of everything that is fucking wrong with fucking TV fucking comedy at the fucking moment. It is arse-gravy of the highest order. And deep down, I know that Green Wing will be renewed for a third series.

Yes, because a celebrity of her stature clearly shouldn't be on something like that. Of course, a year ago, she'd have fucking grabbed at it with both hands.

Why would you want to install any kind of copy protection on a demo?

Dragnet - A much underrated movie. I used to rap "City of Crime". Er.. um. Did I say that out loud?

Halo? GTA trilogy? KOTOR? Is someone applying a brand new meaning to the words "XBox exclusive"?

Personally, I think some aspects of it - the plot/theme especially - have got better with time. And it has a classic ending completely in keeping with the character. It just got overshadowed by the gung ho Independence Day, and despite its big budget, is a dark, bitter little movie at heart. If you watch EfNY then EfLA, there is a lot of subtle reminders, plus the entire film is EfNY in a mirror. (For instance, Snake is the assassin this time.) As for what happened - I think he got elevated above his station a bit. JC has always been a little bit left field, making great cult sci-fi on comparatively low budgets. It worked in the 80s but the techniques of filmmaking has moved on, and I don't think he's ever been that comfortable with big budgets and CGI. You give him more, and he tends to do less with it.

I hate to break this to you, but Europe really isn't where it matters most.

What? Are you seriously suggesting Sony turn round and go "Loyal Japanese customers! Fuck you!"

That wasn't a quiz show. That was an audition for a low-grade media career.

Its about risk. There comes a point where the offer is such that it won't actually make much of a gamble. For instance, if the split is 20k/100k and the offer comes in at <40k, then it is likely to be worth the risk of gambling. It like in WWTBAM, you would happily burn up your lifelines to get to 32,000 and you'd be more likely to take a flyer at the 64,000 question, simply because it doesn't hurt as much to get it wrong. In a £1/250k split, if the banker offers something stupid like 10k, then I bet most people here would gamble. The banker has to play fair within certain limits, and offering 75k on that split is nasty, but his job is to reduce his losses. The banker has to try and work out what the player is willing to walk away with and pitch accordingly.

Normally I'm totally on the side of the contestants, but today she was so bloody cocky that I was quite pleased she made the wrong choices in the end.

Because Germaine was there when the bloke was one box away from a huge offer, and ended up walking away with 1p. He was there for that particular car crash, so even if he thought about going for it, it is fresh in his mind. 75 grand is life-changing money. £1 isn't. You would have to be completely mad to risk that. The only way the 250K is going to be won is by someone who either is rich enough not to care, or has something like a 75k/250k split in the final round.

Why would they have a random number generator, yet players pick pingpong balls out of a bag? Why not have sealed the boxes, then randomly plucked numbers out of a bag to allocate the numbers to the boxes? I smell a rat to be honest. Which is a shame, because DoND works on its own merit, and doesn't need any kind of backstage messing about. When will telly producers learn to just leave something the fuck alone?

Re: River in the bar

Escape From LA. Funnier and smarter as the years go by.

Almost wet myself when Clarkson got the machine gun out.