GrumpyDaddy

Something odd has happened to British television in the last couple of years. The gameshow, once a staple of primetime television, has disappeared from our screens.

Or has it?

There are plenty of new shows on BBC's pre-school channel Cbeebies that are worthy of praise. Show Me Show Me for example is clearly designed by people who love to entertain children and it's no wonder our three little ones love it. Mr Bloom's Nursery is another recent arrival that seeks to entertain, with only gentle nudges of education. The children learn, but without being talked down to.

However the channel features some really poor shows that lay on the education - preaching even - so thick there seems no room to actually entertain the audience. Chief among these is Same Smile - a box ticking programme of such banality and evangelical self importance that it's bound to get some producer fast-tracked for greatness at the Beeb.

Same Smile aims to teach children that although we are all different we all have the same smile. You know, racially harmony, cultural diversity and all that. Except unless you bring your kids up in a KKK household they'll have realised this already. You don't have to tell a four year old that people are different, that some families go to different kinds of church/temples, or that people live in different houses.

But Same Smile and its three shitty little pandas are used every episode to teach kids the absolute bleeding obvious. The format is simple, the annoying smug presenter visits a school and patronises the children for a while. Then three children are chosen to take a panda each and show them their home, culture, crack den - whatever. And supposedly by doing this we all learn to sing in perfect harmony or something.

It's a load of old festering bollocks is what it is.

For many years now Royal Mail Postman Pat Clifton was the man you could always rely on in Greendale. He was the glue that held the community together, the face of officialdom that could be relied on to being the post whatever the weather. Not only did he bring the mail he was often there to save the day in many a community crisis.

But watch Pat at work today and something has gone terribly wrong. Rather than being the glue that holds the Greendale community together he seems to be the cause of most of the local problems. If you've a special event and need a package for it delivered on time, these times you can guarantee there will be some dreadful and potentially dangerous cock-up.

I've written before about some of modern television's mad new techniques to stretch half an hour into an hour slot. Shows like Location Location do this a lot and I ranted about it here.

But there's an even more annoying technique starting to appear over here. As ever this is a US invention, where if you're lucky you may get 20 minutes' content in an hour of TV.

This new method is already being used on the infuriatingly stupid Masterchef, but you can see it on plenty of US imports over here such as Supernanny USA.

Okay Justin, we get it, you like to dress up as women. That's completely okay, you do what you like.

But you don't have to make a Cbeebies show about it surely?

I've made it pretty clear in the past how I feel about the increasing dumbing down of the once great BBC News presentation - the silly pointless live linkups etc.

One other thing that's getting on my goat is the way the news deals with people who wish to retain their anonymity. Often these people are filmed from behind, in shadow or without the camera pointing anywhere near their head.

So far so good. But what's really odd and rather irritating is how these people are given a name. For some reason, "This man, who wishes to remain anonymous told us..." isn't good enough.

Instead the reporter usually says something like, "We spoke to Dave...not his real name...about his experience..."

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q80wfAzeRKA

Now this is one great sports video.

Come on dads you've seen plenty of Cbeebies.

So the question is...

...Nina or Sarah Jane?

Children's television has always been a harbour for the weird. For example my generation got spaced out stuff like Jamie and the Magic Torch and Chorlton and the Wheelies.

One of the oddest shows on CBeebies at the moment is Numberjacks. It really is weird. The programme is a maths education show, but that doesn't really cover the weirdness.

How weird? Well the heroes are numbers which live in a space age bunker hidden within a sofa. They venture into the world to face spooky maths-based paranormal events.

The only thing I can compare it too is Sapphire and Steel from the eighties and that wasn't even a kids' show. Numberjacks just seems to be a kiddie version of that weird David McCallum/Joanna Lumley sci-fi.

Except much shitter.

I read on El Reg today that the BBC has actually received complaints about the Cbeebies presenter Cerrie Burnell.

Why?

Because Cerrie was born without the lower half of her right arm and some precious parents believed this upset their kids.

Which is stupid because kids are strange fickle things. My son is currently terrified, and I really do mean terrified, of the pop-up tractor in a book I bought him yesterday. I haven't written a complaint to the publisher.

I think the parents complaining about Cerrie Burnell really should be ashamed of themselves. They have an ideal opportunity of discussing the subject of disability with their children and instead sought to complain about the girl's appearance.

After fixing last week's semi-final to ensure housewives' favourite Tom stayed in the competition it was obvious who was going to win the final.

There was no need for another two hours of nonsense last night. The die was already cast and it wouldn't have mattered how well any of the participants danced.

The popularity show masquerading as a dance competition Strictly Come Dancing fixed the voting system so there could be only one possible winner. Ladies of a certain age could celebrate, meanwhile the BBC loses more respect in yet another vote rigging disaster.

Update: Seems the BBC has had to fiddle the voting for the Strictly Christmas Special too.

We switched on BBC HD this evening to watch the Beeb's new drama serial Survivors, a remake of the 1970s show where humanity¹ is wiped out by a deadly plague.

I've just read one person's opinion of it being like a Doctors² apocalypse special. Which neatly sums up the awfulness of the 90 minutes we've just sat through.

It really is daytime soap am-dram meets 28 Days Later. Except for the zombies. Nothing that interesting happened. Nicely ethnicly diverse though...well done...add an eight inch cook³ and some special children and it would have ticked enough boxes to get on Cbeebies.

The best bits were high-definition aerial shots. But these are probably just offcuts from Andrew Marr's Britain From the Air. The BBC hasn't quite sussed out how to make the best use of HD yet, so it tends to fall back on filming things from a long way away. And HDing up rubbish like Last of the Summer Wine and After You've Gone.

But I digress...there will be five more episodes of this dreary and rather unfulfilling show. You've got to admire the ability of writers and a director who can take such a brilliant concept for a TV show and somehow get 90 minutes of very dull television out of it.

Nearly everyone in the world is dead. There are so many possibilities. And so what do you think the trail for next week's episode looked like? Was it a retard ridden by a dwarf fighting Mel Gibson for the pleasure of Tina Turner? No viewers, tune in next-week for the next exciting episode of Survivors, featuring the battle of Netto.

_{¹Or at least the humanity that lives within a few miles of Manchester, thanks to the way the BBC is funded.
²Like Holby City, but on during the day, and shitter. If you can imagine that.
³No sniggering at the back now, cook I wrote cook.}