TVReview'Fear does not sell as well as hope," concluded Frank Luntz on Sunday's The Week in Politicsas, seemingly baffled by the vagaries of Irish politics, the American pollster bowed out with his final analysis of why we chose to disembowel the Progressive Democrats and return their coalition partner, Bertie Ahern, the "political tsunami" (goodness), to the hot seat. writes Hilary Fannin
The writers of the endless contrivance that is Lost might have done well to keep this in mind as they made their dour approach to the finishing line of the current series.
"Will they get off the island or will there be another series?" asked Ms Continuity in a breathy haze of anticipation as the final episode draped itself across the screen like an over-confident drunk on a cocktail waitress. I apologise profusely to fans of this blasted televisual conundrum who have the mental prowess and spare time to figure out the myriad possible meanings behind the endless tribulations of the bloody and leggy survivors of Oceanic flight 815, fans for whom life will fade to grey when Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) finally rolls the stone away from the mouth of his entombed psyche and wakes up to smell the coffee (so to speak). The wholesale mixing of metaphors here, you understand, is itself a metaphor for the profound confusion the series throws me into (and if you believe that . . . ).
I have as much chance of advancing a sophisticated theory on why these ruddy people are being held captive in their sour Eden as Michael McDowell has of winning a Ranelagh Mr Popularity contest, but one thing is for sure: like a political career, this story will eventually implode.
In the event, Jack, having got himself and his lactating, suppurating mates off the island (or so we're led to understand), is now flying long-haul around the globe at weekends, sporting an unattractive beard and an insatiable depression. Why? Because he wants another damn plane to crash so he can get back to his provocatively cruel paradise. Bloody typical.
"We have to go back, Kate, we have to go back," he moaned at the end of the end of the series without end. Oh please don't; get another gig, sweetheart, give it a rest.
AS SERIES WITHOUT ends go, Dallas, the sex-'n'-Stetson staple of the 1980s, had a fair whack of the disco ball, filling more than a decade with shoulder-pads, big hair and hoary storylines. For Bring Back Dallas, comedian Justin Lee Collins (and his enthusiastic duffel coat) travelled to Los Angeles in a beat-the-clock attempt to reunite the cast for an oil barons' ball, hosted by Collins in the City of Angels. Happily and predictably, this attempt ended in abject failure, an outcome that admirably suited the timbre of the programme.
En route, however, Collins managed to excavate some ageing yet familiar faces: Larry Hagman (JR), driving down a Hollywood boulevard in a golf buggy, his face as dry and crumpled as his ex-liver; a fecund and semi-naked Charlene Tilton (Lucy the "poison dwarf"), her ample arms clinging to a Los Angeles therapy table (Lee Collins had ambushed her mid-massage); and, fully clothed, a glittering and enthusiastic Linda Grey (Sue Ellen). "I would let you cut off my balls, Linda," offered Collins, rolling his West Country vowels around his hirsute lips in a particularly unappealing fashion.
In this vaguely sadistic attempt at a reunion, it was the non-family cast members who appeared a little bitter or lost. There was the white-haired and prickly Ken Kercheval (Cliff Barnes), mid-panto in England's damp Southampton, who looked like he'd rather eat the remains of Miss Ellie than go to the ball. And then there was Susan Howard, who played Donna Krebbs (remember Donna? - ah well, don't worry), who probably didn't command the kind of fees on Dallas that allowed her a lifetime of facials and who, unlike Victoria Principal (who didn't show up in the documentary at all), didn't marry a plastic surgeon either. Her baggy neck and touching gratitude at being allowed a platform to discuss the personal devastation that ensued when Bobby Ewing turned up in the shower and scuppered her chances of a more lucrative run in the series were a salient reminder of the perils of washed-up actressdom.
No one made the party in the end (except Christopher, Pam and Bobby's mightily grown-up baby). Oh, how is the big hair fallen.
THE MODEST ADVENTURES of David O'Doherty, too, was a party that failed to ignite. Mein host on this occasion was a self-indulgent comedian on a health kick ("lot more green things, less beige things") making an imitative, post-ironic, post-funny, post-my-navel-to-my-granny television show about cycling from Dublin to Galway to play a gig to a handful of students in a cellar bar. The highlights of O'Doherty's soggy trip saw him purchase a pair of trainers and puncture his inner tube near Tullamore. O'Doherty's earnestly anticipated Atlantic rain-belts slowly dripping down a window pane would have made more interesting television. It would seem that, in the chronically depleted sum of the comedy's parts (hangdog demeanour, laid-back delivery, lovingly preserved childhood sporting annuals, warm Mars bars in cycling shorts), someone forgot that an essential component was humour.
HOT ON THE heels of O'Doherty's offering was The Old Grey Whistle Test Story, narrated by Jo Brand, lippy mistress of the sleepy-sardonic-ironic school. A nostalgic look back at the era of "whispering Bob Harris" (described as "a nice hippy introducing nice hippy groups"), it was an invitation to brush up your desert boots and blow the dust off your moulting, mephitic Afghan coat.
Tracing the programme from the "bottle of cider and two Disprins days" of Wack Rickman (I mean Rick Wakeman) and the interminable guitaring of Skynyrd Lynyrd (or whatever) to the spitting birth of punk, what we witnessed was the gradual discombobulation of poor whispering Bob ("that wasn't what he opened his youth club for", as Paul Morley said). Having savagely but inaudibly dismissed the New York Dolls' landmark Test appearance as "mock-rock", it wasn't long before Harris ended up on the wrong end of Sid Vicious's broken beer bottle at a party, only to be saved by the timely intervention of Procol Harum's loyal woadies (sorry, roadies), who diplomatically interposed their ponytails between two eras of British rock.
Ah, it was fun.
AND SO IT'S dah-DAH-dah-aaaahhhhhhhh. Big Brother 2007 discharged its slippery and quixotic self on to our screens with a plasticated pop-art house and an all-female dramatis personae to fill its gauche and eccentric furnishings.
Having been rapped on the knuckles for the last celebrity season's racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty by the doltish Jade Goody and her band of cretinous housemates, Channel 4 would appear to be creating the conditions for another catfight by introducing 11 new females to the BB house. Seven of these are cellulite-free nubile young thangs in various states of fashion derangement, who paced around each other in their peep-toe platforms firing hysterical, extravagant and latently murderous compliments at each other ("Ahhhh, you're gorgeous, ahhhh! Aahhh!"). Joining these headily glamorous hair-extension-holders are bookies' favourite Laura, a comfy young Welsh nanny with an impressive décolletage and an ambition to be an embalmer; Carol, a 56-year-old bisexual, divorced, unemployed political activist; Lesley, a 60-year-old with cranky glasses who thinks she's a friend of Charles and Camilla; and Tracey, a grungy, pink-haired farmer's daughter who says "unlucky Kentucky" in a very deep voice.
Just what the producers hope will happen in their psychedelic convent one can only imagine, but there was a palpable hysteria on opening night when the sliding door closed for the last time, having failed to admit any testosterone. By the time you read this, however, a single male will have been thrown to the pride, and it is shockingly irritating to realise that the producers' intention must be that the girls will rip tresses and forgo dresses to win his attention. This will be one grim summer fairy tale.
With Machiavellian malevolence, the house designer has created one enormous pink bed, a princess holder, which sleeps "many", in a bedroom that contains just two other beds. With the crowds already baying for the blood of the avaricious young girlies with more handbags than principles and, thus far, cheering the plainer Janes, I have that horrible queasy feeling of being sucked into the vortex again. I cannot bear the nasty intelligence at work behind this flimsy and gratuitous social experiment, but my baser side is looking forward to seeing Amanda and Sam, the crucifyingly awful identical twin confections, touch the dark side when the producers hide their lip gloss.