Still watching
Still watching
Still watching
Still watching
Long a fan of Conan, and I remember watching at least some of those early Conan Without Borders episodes, and Conan Must Go has been on my list since pretty much that insane Hot Ones episode. O’Brien is a generous presence, happy for others to get the laughs at his expense, but clearly also genuinely curious about the world around him and knows the comedy value in jumping headfirst into situations. The Larry David impersonator blind date is an absolute highlight, as is the tango to Kiss Of Fire. Good company.
Still watching
Still watching
Despite having incredibly fond memories of Love Soup from nigh on 20 years ago (which held up on rewatch last year) and Jonathan Creek, I had never got round to arguably David Renwick’s most popular show. Prompted by a forum discussion on the best plotting in comedy, in which the two most common responses were OFITG and Cabin Pressure, it felt time to get on with it. Forewarned that it hits its stride in series 2, I still really enjoyed the early iteration of it. It beds in very quickly, each episode jams a lot in (to great effect, not a criticism) but isn’t quite doing the Seinfeld dovetailing yet. I look forward to seeing how this develops.
This oddly passed me by at the time, but with the second series beginning and it being back in the semi-public consciousness, it was time to dig in and oh what a thrill to have done so. It’s so confident in its own particular voice, Lucia Keskin’s specific silly sense of humour, completely deadpan but full of half-baked vignettes. I can understand how this might not be for everyone, but what a treat for those on her wavelength.
An odd little one, this. It’s perfectly fine, some decent enough jokes, the plot moves along nicely. But that’s… it? It feels like a waste of Mark Heap and Dawn French to make something so grounded. It’s missing a spark to properly ignite it into something good. It sometimes feels like Simon Mayhew-Archer - who does, to his credit, an awful lot to raise awareness around Parkinsons - set out to make a comedy that included a good representation of Parkinsons, and then once that was achieved (which it was, Heap’s character gets a lot of good moments around that), didn’t really push much beyond that. A shame for the loss of potential, but maybe a second series could double down.
After a really solid year of Taskmaster with series 19 and 20, maybe the best back to back pair for some time, it’s a disappointing New Year’s Treat to start off 2026. The contestants themselves are fine, but everything else around it is the worst parts of Taskmaster dialled up to 11, with Alex Horne at his most weird/fetish/fan-service-y.
Still watching
Oh it’s still one of the best things on television, isn’t it? I mean my god. The tension in that last episode! The “secret traitor” conceit didn’t quite pan out as well as one might have hoped, but still threw something into the mix, at least, rather than stasis. It’s fascinating to see multiple traitors win for the first time, which hopefully demonstrates to future contestants that they don’t have to betray fellow traitors to win, but it’s still a possibility. Should lead to some interesting gameplay, especially as we’re now happily in a feedback loop of players understanding what is and isn’t possible in the game, pushing the envelope (Matt making a pitch to get recruited!) which then becomes accepted lore. God bless Stephen for getting through all that.