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Telly addicts

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Original poster

Black Mirror anyone?

40 replies

bucketbetty · 11/12/2011 22:52

I thought it was quite interesting that Charlie Brooker would write this and wonder if it's payback for his wife? I really enjoyed it.

OP posts:

HeidiKat · 12/12/2011 09:10

Does anyone know who the actor was that was playing the ginger guy two bikes down from Bing, I know his face from somewhere but can't think where.

limitedperiodonly · 12/12/2011 10:24

Ch 4 is in thrall to Charlie Brooker. If anyone else had pitched that idea they'd have been told it was boring and derivative and that he couldn't make drama for toffee.

All he does is mock TV programmes that anyone can see are shit. You don't need special talent to do that but you do need special talent as a TV critic to find and praise the good stuff.

I wonder if it's because he can't bring himself to utter a word of praise for someone else.

If he's so upset about it why doesn't he use his TV production company and excellent contacts to make something original and good himself?

Or maybe he can't devise good TV, he just knows it when he sees it just like millions of other people.

ThePickledGerbil · 12/12/2011 13:52

Heidi was it one of the 118118 men from the adverts?

I really didn't like the programme. I think CB is worse than the majority of the public he never tires of taking the piss out of. HE wants to see pig-fucking and pretty women being humiliated and degraded. He points the finger at the public for demanding that sorta shit but he's the one going to great lengths to actually put it on tv.

Unless he's aware of that but thinks he's being really clever and ironic...he's not

CalatalieSisters · 12/12/2011 14:07

Well, in fairness to Brooker, I don't doubt for a second that he would see himself as one of the (millions of) social media sheep that make our world like the one in his dystopia. Also, he was presumably sending himself up by creating a character who gets on telly just to make a hyperbolic rant against the system, and then willingly sells out by agreeing to a twice-a-week rant against the system on the Cowell-characters channels.

I thought it was an effective programme. I was especially horrified by the pornographic turn. Though I was a leetle bit pissed off that the hero's being forced to watch the porn-ad ended up ranking higher in the play's explicit horrors than the actual manipulation of his friend into performing porn. As if the man striving to protect a woman from a quasi-rape (or actual rape) suffers more than the woman herself. That moight be unfair of me though.

paddypoopants · 12/12/2011 14:10

I'm glad there's a thread on this. I actually like Charlie Brooker and his tv reviews made me laugh but he lost it quite a while ago probably when he became part of the tv establishment. His newspaper stuff has got really poor as of late. I thought this was absolutely god awful- derivative, not half as clever as it obviously thought it was and frankly achingly dull. Last week's was ok - a silly idea quite well executed but last nights was snoozeville. Next week's episode is written by someone else- maybe it will be better.

HeidiKat · 12/12/2011 17:10

Oh yes Pickled you could be right about the 118 men, thanks.

StellaAndFries · 12/12/2011 17:25

I watched it last night and thought it was rubbish.

LEttletownofBOFlehem · 12/12/2011 17:28

Poor Lady Sybil

campocaro · 12/12/2011 17:38

Kanaq Huq is Konnie Huq's 'real' name.

Agree with CalatalieSisters I thought it was really good-fantastic performances from the judges and the main character. Made me appreciate my morning walk in a beautiful natural environment...

Moln · 12/12/2011 18:23

ii have to confess to not knowing who Charlie Brooker is!

I know the name Konnie Huq but can't figure out who is was.

I'm off to hit google...

Moln · 12/12/2011 18:31

ok now up to speed - though still not too sure who he is

GColdtimer · 12/12/2011 21:59

Just watching. Whilst the concept doesn't quite work Bing is brilliant.

And yes, poor lady Sybil

TheFoosa · 13/12/2011 08:26

apparently Rupert Everett was in it

I quite enjoyed it, thought the lead guy was excellent

LaurieFairyCake · 13/12/2011 08:41

I thought it was really good - brought quite a few themes together.

The idea that you couldn't think for yourself, that you were forced to watch adverts/porn was a strong idea.

particularly liked that the cult of celebrity 'won' in the end - horrific idea.

The idea of the individual striving always to be self determined was fascinating. Found the atmosphere horribly claustrophobic.

I couldn't decide at the end if he was looking at a real forest or just another set of screens - it makes more sense if it was just more screens as it leaves the idea that there is nothing outside, that this environment is all they have.

I think they are good 'tales of the unexpected' for a modern era - the original wasn't some huge deal, the fact that these ones stand out show that there is a lot of fairly poor programming on tv.

ThatVikRinA22 · 14/12/2011 21:49

i just watched it, i thought it was brilliant.

the rant that Bing had, when he got to the contest, was pure Charlie Brooker, completely the sort of thing he would be shouting at the telly on SW!

i thought the view he had at the end was another screen - he just had a bigger version of what he used to have, and that was the rub. He sold out, and for nothing.

i liked it. i think CB should be doing more of them. I think he is a talented producer/writer.

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