TV: Deal or No Deal

At 16:15, Deal or No Deal?

Deal.



Since November (only a couple of months behind everyone else, not bad for me) I've been getting my fix of Endemol's new hit show Deal or No Deal. If you haven't tuned in yet, it's like watching a game of poker. The rules seem simple but there are far deeper elements at play than just choosing boxes and trying to avoid revealing the big numbers. It has the same elements of luck and strategy as poker, plus you're up against another player who is trying to break you.

I didn't believe that last part when I first started watching the show - the unseen banker who offers you sums of money over a telephone is surely choosing the sums based on risk analysis? But in the episodes from the middle of January it has become clear that he thinks he can buy some players out more cheaply than others, while forcing gamblers to play on and lose everything with unexpected low offers. Witness Robbie being wowed by an opening offer of £7,000+, completely blowing his poker face by making out that was a big deal, and never getting the kind of high offer he should have in later rounds. He managed to turn the strongest board the game has ever seen into just £5,500 by showing weakness. I'd love to sit down at a poker table with him.

Matt Chapman is available to write TV reviews.

DVD: Joshua

Found the plot

When does "Plot Synopsis" go a little too far and become total plot giveaway?

I think the makers of the Joshua DVD might want to edit their Amazon.com listing:

Plot Synopsis: The town of Auburn was always normal, to say the least. True, the people there weren't really a "community", but they never noticed...until a stranger named Joshua rolled into town one morning. In small ways, Joshua began to help out around the town-helping a teen play guitar, helping save a marriage in danger, or teaching a bumbling priest how to speak about faith. An old Baptist church that came down in a storm is his next big project. With the help of stuttering Theo, who dreams of being a preacher, he brings the town together to restore the old building. In this way, the whole town unites and becomes a community. This attracts the attention of Father Tordone, who is a bitter man due to the fact that he lost a position in the Vatican. When the mysterious Joshua begins to show up in two places at once and miraculously cures a blind woman, Father Tordone believes Joshua is a false prophet, trying to cheat people. When his next huge miracle-reviving Theo from death after he falls from the roof of the newly completed church-overwhelms the town, Father Tordone seeks out an official condemnation from the Vatican. But Joshua melts his icy heart, and the reformed Father becomes a Vatican member. Joshua sees the Pope himself and reveals himself as Jesus! After his meeting, Joshua leaves-but the people of Auburn, with their dreams fufilled and their happiness increased.

Could anyone have saved the whale?

Only one man...

Moby Sick

Currently doing the rounds after Saturday's Whale-in-the-Thames tragedy

INTERVIEW: David Cronenberg

Widescreen Wonder

This was clipped out of a Dreamwatch interview with David Cronenberg (apparently it's “too techy”, but most TV remotes have an Aspect button these days so it should be fairly familiar). According to this, David Cronenberg invented the widescreen format...

"I’ve always felt, right from my first film, that my movies would have a greater life on TV and tape than they would at the cinema. I’ve never shot widescreen, for example; the aspect ratio I was using was done with TV in mind. And it’s ironic because I ended up shooting somewhere between European aspect ratio [1.66:1] and the American [1.85:1], so I actually invented the 1.75:1 ratio that now turns out to be almost exactly what these 16:9 widescreen TV have [laughs]. Who would anticipate that 16:9 would end up the standard frame for widescreen? Maybe they came to the same conclusion I did: it was the ideal frame."

In other news...

I've decided to hang up my spurs as the deputy editor of Dreamwatch magazine. I'm going to try something I've never done before - freelancing.

Just keep repeating that old TV-presenter mantra: "I'm not frightened, I'm excited. I'm not frightened, I'm excited."

I have to admit there are loads of good jobs around at the moment - I guess it's a January thing - so if I bottle it and go for one of those don't be too hard on me.

Antiseptic flavour

All American chewing gum tastes like TCP.

Discuss.

Chuckle

There's something so stupid and yet so funny about the Chuck Norris facts that are doing the rounds at the moment.

Flagging badly

I don't think I've ever properly had jetlag before. I've been to America a few times (three times to New York and now twice to Vegas, I really should branch out next time) and I've always felt tired and slightly out of sync when I got back. Nothing 12 hours in bed wouldn't cure, though.

What the hell happened this time? We got back Tuesday and I stupidly stayed awake on the plane - Virgin had too many good films to sleep - and then went to bed at two in the afternoon back at Chez Hoskyn. I only planned to have a nap, but I got up at midnight and had to spend a nightmare day at work on Wednesday. That would be fine if it wasn't press week! For the next few days I was signing off pages thinking "God, I hope everyone else is reading this really closely." At least we get the final proofs next week so I'll be on better form to catch anything that might have slipped my tired mind.

Wednesday and Thursday night I tried staying awake late (11-midnight) and getting up for work, to try and force my way back into a routine. It hasn't worked. On Friday night I went to bed at midnight, but slept till 4pm Saturday. I returned to bed at 3.30am this morning but got up at 10am.

Like I say, I don't think I've ever had proper jetlag before. I feel like I did the first time I really had flu. All the times before that I just had a minor cold, but there's stuff going around and you think it's flu. Then you get the real thing and it kicks your legs from under you and you feel like you've been stomped by a gang of hooded teenagers.

I'm determined not to give in to an afternoon nap today - this madness has to end!

TV: Hyperdrive

Hyperdrivel

I'm playing catchup with TV at the moment. At least the weird hours I'm keeping give me lots of freetime to binge on Celebrity Big Brother (addicted); My Name is Earl (my new favourite show); and poker (The James Woods Gang vs The Unabombers and the Poker Royale Comedians vs Pros).

I also managed to catch the BBC's new space drama Hyperdrive. Hang on, I'm reading some notes about it here and it says it's a comedy. That can't be right. Comedies have jokes in them. Or at least situations that lead to laughter. There must be some mistake.

There's been a mistake alright. My first thoughts when watching Hyperdrive were "How the hell did this make it on to television?" Don't they have script editors at the BBC who make sure things are up to scratch at that point? Don't they have producers who tweak things if they're not quite working out before the production even starts? Don't the people involved - Spaced and Shaun of the Dead's Nick Frost; I am Alan Partridge and Brass Eye's Kevin Eldon; brilliant stand-up comic Dan Antopolski - realise this stuff is comedy death? Perhaps the biggest warning sign comes from the lack of an audience laugh track - did they even screen this for an audience? Even canned laughter might have helped things along, at least then we'd have known which bits the Beeb thought were funny.

As it was, I was left to shake my head as situation after situation passed by without even a smile. The worst part is that this is actually aimed at me! The situations being parodied are your classic Star Trek first encounters, but this has been advertised heavily to a mainstream audience. God only knows what they made of it...

There's one funny moment in half an hour (one?!). Commander Henderson sends his six-year-old niece a birthday video message, where he amusingly scares her about shiny killer robots. Even that moment is only slightly funny, because the idea was recently used to much funnier effect in an advert for John Smith's Extra Smooth. That made me think of Peter Kaye (who stars in the Smith's advert), which made me think of the brilliantly-funny Phoenix Nights, which made me think "Why the hell am I watching this rubbish?"

OK, so shows have to start somewhere. Plus, it's hard to set up the premise for a television series, introduce all the characters and be hugely funny in just half an hour. And even greats like Ricky Gervais can have poor openings - that first episode of Extras with Ben Stiller is the worst of the series (although, if you know the history of that show, the BBC screened the episodes out of order - Auntie felt a name like Stiller would be a bigger audience draw).

The "Next Week on Hyperdrive" clips seemed less funny than the episode I'd just watched. Since it really hurt me to watch this first outing to the end, it's probably a good idea to include clips that offer the hope of better things to come. As it is, I wouldn't bother to tune in again if it wasn't my job to be up on these things. Sometimes that seems like a high price to pay.

Thanks to TVScoop for picking up this review!

Guess who's back

Another trip to Vegas successfully completed. Let's not talk about the boring work stuff, let's concentrate on the fact that I not only returned with my shirt still on, I brought an extra bag home with me full of cheap American clothes.

I'll post some of my thoughts in the next few days. Right now my head is full of cotton wool.

In-N-Out Burger: The Movie

On the advice of my best friend James I finally made it to In-N-Out Burger to try its produce. There's some history here, in that James would often drive us up to Hanley when we were at college to get lunch from the Mexican stand at the shopping centre food court. This was the home of the best burger in Stoke-on-Trent - a half pound monster that came with free chips, proving the staff had a sense of humour. Since then, whenever I've been back to Stoke, Jim has known exactly where to go to get the best burger the town has to offer. As he stated in an email to me before I flew out to Vegas, he's "Always on the path to a better burger".

So you can see that when Jim says I need to visit In-N-Out burger, I should take it very seriously. Especially when he backs it up with a poll from Lasvegas.Citysearch.com which gives the store a user rating of 9.7 out of 10! Last year I failed him miserably by never setting foot in it, despite the fact it's just a short walk from out hotel. This year I had to do better.

The only thing in my way? That unbelievably good buffet at our hotel. In fact, it's that daily ritual of breakfast and evening meals at the buffet (no lunch necessary) which kept me from stepping foot in In-N-Out until today. With only one half-day remaining of our trip, I hoped I wasn't going to regret having more opportunities to eat here.

My initial impression as I approached the building was I couldn't believe how full it was. It's just off the Vegas strip, but you have to cross a freeway bridge to reach it, and I was probably the only walk-in customer (everyone in Vegas drives). My next impression was that this is how fast food is supposed to be. The menu is very simple, with enough choices for variety but not so many that the staff behind the counter can't cope. And what's that man doing in the background? He's feeding potatoes into an old-style chipping vice, pulling the lever and making chips out of them! I'm not one for fries as a general rule, but I had to have some and I wasn't disappointed. The only thing that did disappoint me was that I had my mini-camcorder rolling the whole time. I've yet to check the footage, but I'm pretty sure he stopped chipping before I took up a spot where I could capture him doing it.

Overall, the burger was excellent, with very fresh salad. Even the information on the burger wrapping told me why McDonald's would never be able to better this place:
* All the burgers are with fresh beef that's never been frozen.
* The buns are made without preservatives the old-fashioned way.
* All lettuce is hand leafed every day.
* The fries are peeled and diced from Kennebec potatoes
* Fries have been cooked in cholesterol-free oil since 1948.

I had a double-double burger with fries, which came to about $4.49 (£2.50). As soon as the last piece was in my mouth I regretted not coming here before. I won't make the same mistake next time I find one.

A Married Man's Fantasy (Football)

Like Stoke City's string of managers over the past few years, I have an uncanny ability to guide a football team into mid-table. So much so that this year I called my teams Mid-Table Shiteness and Mid-Table Madness. They are, predictably, both mid-table. They started out with exactly the same players and have grown apart as I've experimented with people who seem to be hitting their form or who are clearly having a good season.

I'm not as into this as everyone else who plays is. I'm just trying to have one good month and win a prize (either something to the value of £80 or two tickets to a Chelsea home game depending on which game you win, so worth going for). With that in mind I do monitor who's doing well and who's injured, which isn't too hard since I read a daily football email and watch a lot of games.

Sadly, my plan is clearly rubbish when it comes to creating a successful team. I mean, take my wife (please ;> ). She looks at the team sheet, recognises a few names from watching international football and spends her £50 million. She doesn't follow the league or make any changes to her team. And where does that get her? Six points and three places above muggins here.

To make it worse, my team in the Edelman league has 198 points, but Jane isn't playing in that game!




I'm taking my ball and going home...

Showoffs

You think your big razmatazz New Year's Eve celebration was better than mine? Where was the web cam when I got 337 in Scrabble, eh?