11) The X Factor
This was going to be much further down the list up until last Saturday's finale in the auditionees rendition of Earth Song where Lorraine missed her cue completely, providing one of the funniest moments of the year.
If only the rest of the Series had been as entertaining. The thing is, for the first time since Will Young, I actually found someone, in fact two acts, worth rooting for in Leona, by far and away the best talent show contestant the UK has ever had and Eton Road, a boyband who understood the whole concept of pop music perfectly.
But the rest of it was so utterly contrived, mundane or both, it unfortunately cancelled the good points out. The sob-stories were exploitative in the extreme, the songs were the same songs we've heard the past three series (does anyone need to hear Somewhere Over The Rainbow or I Don't Want To Miss A Thing ever again?) and in the likes of Ray, the McDonald Brothers and Nikita, we had the most mediocre and unexciting set of contestants ever.
Thank God that sense prevailed and that Leona won, making watching the whole sorry mess worthwhile. Surely even Simon Cowell won't give her Westlife rejects for her album.
12) Lost
You tend to forget that we’ve actually gone through three series of Lost this year, what with the tail end of S1 at the beginning of the year, S2 in the Summer and then the opening six episodes on Sky One just recently. And yet we’re still no closer to finding out what the hell is going on. Surely the producers should have given us something by now? Anyway, despite it being utterly infuriating at times (why does no-one ever ask any questions?) when it’s good, it’s really good, and Michael shooting and killing Ana-Lucia and Libby was the most shocking and unexpected TV moment of the year.
You tend to forget that we’ve actually gone through three series of Lost this year, what with the tail end of S1 at the beginning of the year, S2 in the Summer and then the opening six episodes on Sky One just recently. And yet we’re still no closer to finding out what the hell is going on. Surely the producers should have given us something by now? Anyway, despite it being utterly infuriating at times (why does no-one ever ask any questions?) when it’s good, it’s really good, and Michael shooting and killing Ana-Lucia and Libby was the most shocking and unexpected TV moment of the year.
13) Lee Otway’s Strop on Love Island
Don't get me wrong. This year's Love Island really did scrape the bottom of the barrel like it has never done before. You know you're in trouble when Bombhead from Hollyoaks is the most recognisable face in there. The likes of Chris Brosnan, Calum Best and Bianca Gascoigne proved you don't even need to be a Z-list celeb to be on a reality show, as long as you're related to someone famous, that's fine. I'm sure next year we'll see Claudia Winkelman's brother's dry cleaner in there.
Don't get me wrong. This year's Love Island really did scrape the bottom of the barrel like it has never done before. You know you're in trouble when Bombhead from Hollyoaks is the most recognisable face in there. The likes of Chris Brosnan, Calum Best and Bianca Gascoigne proved you don't even need to be a Z-list celeb to be on a reality show, as long as you're related to someone famous, that's fine. I'm sure next year we'll see Claudia Winkelman's brother's dry cleaner in there.
Anyway, the show, not surprisingly, bombed but at times it was embarrassingly entertaining, mainly thanks to Sophie Anderton's daily breakdowns and the utter stupidity of Lady Victoria Hervey, who didn't know where America was on a map, even though she lived there. Best of all was Lee Otway's hilariously cringeworthy reaction to being rejected by an ex Playboy model, stomping his way around the diary room, breaking camera equipment and curling up his bottom lip in an almighty two-year-old style tantrum. He made Paul Danan look balanced.
14) The Keith Chegwin Extras episode
On the whole, the second series of Extras was a disappointment, relying on repetitive storylines (Maggie puts her foot in it…again) “have them for the sake of it” cameos and ludicrously unbelievable plots (a critically mauled sitcom Star becomes as famous as The Pope). But the first episode promised so much, whether it was the Lenny Henry gag, Orlando Bloom’s vendetta against Johny Depp or Maggie being humiliated by a former extra. But the star of the show and the series was Keith Chegwin’s whose foul-mouthed racist send-up was on a par with last year’s Les Dennis nervous breakdown and showed you don’t need big stars for the cameos to work. If only the rest of the series hadn’t smugly disappeared up its own arse.
15) Chef’s Death in South Park
How to get your own back Trey Parker and Matt Stone style. When Isaac Hayes hypocritically announced he was quitting voicing Chef due to the show mocking his Scientology religion (when he’d been happy to appear in a show that had mocked every other religion, race and minority there is) the show’s creators got their revenge by giving Chef’s character probably the least graceful exit ever, turning him into a paedophile and giving him the most violent and undignified death imaginable. The most shockingly funny bit of TV this year.
How to get your own back Trey Parker and Matt Stone style. When Isaac Hayes hypocritically announced he was quitting voicing Chef due to the show mocking his Scientology religion (when he’d been happy to appear in a show that had mocked every other religion, race and minority there is) the show’s creators got their revenge by giving Chef’s character probably the least graceful exit ever, turning him into a paedophile and giving him the most violent and undignified death imaginable. The most shockingly funny bit of TV this year.
16) Popworld
Forget Top Of The Pops or CDUK, the biggest loss to pop music TV came in April when the brilliantly subversive Popworld came to an end. OK, so Miquita Oliver often came across as pretentious and was nothing more than a spare part, but that doesn't matter when you've got Simon "hell-bent on showing up popstars" Amstell.
Forget Top Of The Pops or CDUK, the biggest loss to pop music TV came in April when the brilliantly subversive Popworld came to an end. OK, so Miquita Oliver often came across as pretentious and was nothing more than a spare part, but that doesn't matter when you've got Simon "hell-bent on showing up popstars" Amstell.
His finest moment will always remain attempting to chat up homophobic reggae star Beenie Man but each week you’d be guaranteed at least one popstar who just didn't get the joke. The final show avoided all the usual compilation cliches, and instead provided us with a finale where Simon and Miquita discovered that God was actually Daniel Bedingfield. The show continued with different presenters, Alexa Chung and Alex Zane, but no matter how hard they try, and they are getting better, it’s never going to be the same.
17) Dragon's Den
The first few series of Dragon's Den somehow completely passed me by and I only stumbled upon this one by accident. Set up like a businessman's Pop Idol, the show revolves around wannabe-entrepreneurs pitching their products in an attempt to persuade five successful multi-millionaires, the "dragons", to invest in their business. And like Pop Idol, it's the utterly clueless people thar provide the most entertainment.
The dragons themselves make Simon Cowell look like Fern Britton. Totally and utterly intimidating, it's not surprising that most people just fall apart when making their pitch. Two of them, Duncan and Theo, have to be the most obnoxious, patronising and grumpiest people on TV, but the other three, for the most part, are usually quite fair and offer constructive advice e.g. don't give up your day job, rather than just totally humiliating them. Along with The Apprentice, this showed that business programmes can be fun too.
18) Hotel Inspector
Another show which copied Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares formula, hotelier Ruth Watson tries to help ailing hotels boost their business usually by obvious things (nicer rooms, nicer food, better organisation etc.) The show is watchable but nothing outstanding. The reason why it’s so high up is due to two particular episodes, the first which centred around The Saxonia Hotel in Weston-Super-Mare run by a middle-aged couple, so bizarre they could have come from The League Of Gentlemen, who said in all seriousness that they would kill themselves if they weren’t awarded an extra star in their next inspection. The second and most disturbing was the Sparkles Hotel in Blackpool, a scary children's themed hotel which charges £500 for the privilege of sleeping in a room covered with Barbie dolls and frightening looking mannequins.
Another show which copied Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares formula, hotelier Ruth Watson tries to help ailing hotels boost their business usually by obvious things (nicer rooms, nicer food, better organisation etc.) The show is watchable but nothing outstanding. The reason why it’s so high up is due to two particular episodes, the first which centred around The Saxonia Hotel in Weston-Super-Mare run by a middle-aged couple, so bizarre they could have come from The League Of Gentlemen, who said in all seriousness that they would kill themselves if they weren’t awarded an extra star in their next inspection. The second and most disturbing was the Sparkles Hotel in Blackpool, a scary children's themed hotel which charges £500 for the privilege of sleeping in a room covered with Barbie dolls and frightening looking mannequins.
19) I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here
This year’s I’m A Celebrity was one of the most tedious so far thanks to its most Z-list cast, the stupid idea to break up the camp into males/females and the fact that most of them got on so well, the only thing the show seemed to consist of was them telling us how hungry they were. Of course there were a few moments of TV Gold: Lauren Booth’s Beenie Man moves, Phina and Scott’s bitch fight in the Treasure Chest, and of course the enigma that was David Gest whose tales of genitalia-named cleaners and one legged parents had everyone in fits of laughter and goes to show the media can completely twist someone’s persona. But of course, this year will always be remembered for one thing- Dean Gaffney’s near mental breakdown on his bush tuckertrial. Looking as though he’d literally been taken in against his will, he shrieked and yelped his way through every single part, and didn’t seem to have a clue where he was. The look on Ant and Dec’s faces said everything.
This year’s I’m A Celebrity was one of the most tedious so far thanks to its most Z-list cast, the stupid idea to break up the camp into males/females and the fact that most of them got on so well, the only thing the show seemed to consist of was them telling us how hungry they were. Of course there were a few moments of TV Gold: Lauren Booth’s Beenie Man moves, Phina and Scott’s bitch fight in the Treasure Chest, and of course the enigma that was David Gest whose tales of genitalia-named cleaners and one legged parents had everyone in fits of laughter and goes to show the media can completely twist someone’s persona. But of course, this year will always be remembered for one thing- Dean Gaffney’s near mental breakdown on his bush tuckertrial. Looking as though he’d literally been taken in against his will, he shrieked and yelped his way through every single part, and didn’t seem to have a clue where he was. The look on Ant and Dec’s faces said everything.
20) Porno, Preachers and Peddlers
A show which probably only one man and his dog saw, this was still the best documentary I saw all year and is surprisingly one of two BBC3 shows in the Top 20.
A show which probably only one man and his dog saw, this was still the best documentary I saw all year and is surprisingly one of two BBC3 shows in the Top 20.
The programme followed the progress of three new cable channels in its opening months, I-Buy TV, a shopping channel in which its main host believed he could persuade someone to buy something by just staring into their eyes, Television X, an adult channel which had so few viewers for its text show, had to rely on the directors to message in themselves and most amusing of all, Revelations TV, a British Christian channel run by just one family, which made Live TV look like the pinnacle of British Broadcasting. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Viewers were asked to pray when their phone system went down during a phone-in for suicidal people, an explicit sex education video was accidentally shown in the middle of the afternoon. You couldn't make it up. This was a hilarious and eye-opening look behind the scenes at just a few of the seemingly never-ending amount of cheap, rubbish channels that are swarming satellite TV.
