In which BBC iPlayer saves my sanity

[wshaffer]

I spent a bunch of time last night trying to troubleshoot a recalcitrant piece of software that was preventing me from making a deadline. The tricky part was that at each attempt, the software needed about half an hour to do its thing before I could look at the results and troubleshoot. So, I'd start it up, listen to a half-hour comedy episode on BBC iPlayer, look at the results, and repeat.

I got through quite a selection of comedy, so I thought I'd post a few capsule reviews:

• Nebulous (Series 2, Episode 1: The Deptford Wives): Spoofs Jurassic Park, Blade Runner, and Doctor Who. Guest stars Peter Davison, playing a doctor with a name no one can pronounce, so they just call him "Doctor". Good stuff. Why isn't Nebulous series 2 out on CD yet?


• The Navy Lark (Refitting Ebeneezer Pertwee): I started listening to The Navy Lark a little while back because Jon Pertwee was in it. Playing a character named "Jon Pertwee". (I find it very peculiar that the three stars of The Navy Lark play characters who have the same names as themselves, but who are very clearly fictional. Did the writer just not want to think up names?) The Navy Lark is very much in the "let's put on silly voices and make fun of the Welsh" school of comedy, but the cast have got such great comic timing and verbal agility that it's great anyway. The best Navy Lark episodes usually make me laugh out loud - this one didn't, but it was amusing.


• Round the Horne (Series 1, Episode 12): I have mixed feelings about this one. The James Bond parody was full of now-obscure jokes about BBC presenters from 1965 and silly fake Chinese accents. But the Sandy and Julian sketch was funny, and I like the way they play around with the conventions of radio drama. (As whenever Horne explains that he can do something because the narrator is on his side.)


• Old Harry's Game (Series 2, Episode 1): Best discovery of the evening. This is a sitcom about Hell, starring Andy Hamilton (a familiar voice from The News Quiz) as Satan. In this episode, Satan decides to hire an assistant because Hell is getting overcrowded. An enthusiastic demon with an unfortunate tendency to turn into a lawnmower applies for the job. Meanwhile, Satan makes a bet with the Professor, the only damned soul who isn't tormented by Hell because he sees the whole thing as a fascinating experiment. The bet concerns whether Tony, another damned soul, can change for the better. Satan's plans are frustrated when his would-be demonic assistant, sent to tempt Tony in the guise of a 16-year-old schoolgirl, gets nervous and turns into a lawnmower at a crucial moment. I loved this. I'm amazed that it's gone 7 series so far, and I've never heard of it. Will definitely listen to more.


• Dalek I Love You Too: This is a sequel to "Dalek I Love You", which I haven't heard, which might account for part of my being perplexed by this. Mainly, though, I really wasn't sure how to take it. It's full of over-the-top characters and Doctor Who in-jokes. But when other characters mention that the protagonist has stopped taking his medication, and the protagonist seems to have developed a delusion that his long-absent father is the Doctor...we've left the land of funny by that point. It was interesting, though, and I'll definitely listen to the previous episode if I ever come across it.

Short summary: Nebulous and Old Harry's Game are highly recommended.

Comments

Re: If ever...

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Jack - I'll definitely check out the show. As you say, it's hard to sift through all the audio out there on your own.

I'm enjoying Ahistory. If you've ever wondered when the UNIT stories are really supposed to be set or if it's possible to reconcile the three different explanations for the fate of Atlantis given in the show, then this book is a must-read. Even if you don't spend much time thinking about such questions (and I'll admit, I don't), it's quite interesting to see an attempt to lay out the TV series, comics, novels, and audios in a consistent timeline.