You Have Been Watching

I enjoyed last week's as well as this week's.

Was a touch worried about it being too much of a panel show, but its so "Brooker" I needn't have. Its more like a segment within screenwipe.

It would benefit from being trailed better. I forgot all about it and found it half way through when channel hopping.

I think the final viewing figure will be better, because I imagine a lot of people would record this rather than watch it live.

The trails I say made the show seem 'wacky' to me. If it hadn't been a Charlie Brooker show, I probably wouldn't have watched it based on the trails alone.

There are enough funny parts of the show to make up for the poor ones, but as a whole it just doesn't quite work. The 'bolted-on' (Charlie's words, not mine) quiz show element disrupts the flow of the show, and doesn't even work in a semi-ironic way.

While I would prefer to just see Charlie sitting on his couch in the low-budget Screenwipe, I accept that for a mainstream audience you need a little bit more than that. Therefore, why not just make it panelists talking about the week's TV in the humourous way they currently do, rather than feeling the need to disrupt it for a random question every so often?

The other thing is that the panelists are absolutely vital - Frank Skinner in particular seemed to get exactly what Charlie was trying to do, but if you get the wrong guest on it's murder. Stephen Fry just looking highly confused on Chris Moyles' show was a perfect example for me.

I thought last night's was much better than last week's, mainly because Jamelia wasn't howling over everything Brooker said. Frank Skinner was very funny.

My problem is I miss that sort of 'closet-like' feeling of Screenwipe on BBC Four. The audience laughter sort of ruins the satire for me but that said, it's still funny.

This week's was the 2nd episode wasn't it?

I ask because David Mitchell is in the trails for the series but I haven't seen him on the programme

He was in the pilot episode.

ahhh, was that shown on air?

The pilot was never shown.
That was done In April, and apparently over half the audience that had tickets for the pilot had to be turned away from the recording (which I think was TVC, as opposed to the series which is at Riverside Studios) as there weren't enough seats in the studio.

In the final episode of the series, they should cover As Seen on TV.

Great episode tonight looking back at the nineties. Ring My Bell is one show which escaped my attention back then - for obvious reasons it seems. Love Bouncer's dream too!

Hopefully it's done enough to be recommissioned, and Charlie Brooker is rather in favour with C4. It has really grown over the series, though of course it's more Screenwipe with guests than quiz show - but that's exactly how I like it. Would be awful if they bought it back and reworked it as a more traditional panel show.


I guess it's back to BBC4 next for Mr Brooker - though can't say I'm that interested in Gameswipe.

Gameswipe doesn't really appeal to me either.

Great show tonight. Funny how he chose to focus on You Bet! of all the shows and he missed out Eurotrash when reminiscing over classic 'nude' moments.