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!