Love Island USA

In a roller coaster year of dizzying highs and terrifying lows, I’m going to point the finger at ITV2 for being both the cause of and the solution to a large number of these peaks and troughs.  As we all know, the calendar year is built around Love Island.  Normally those wonderful weeks of coupling up each night with an hour of guaranteed good telly (apart from the oddly unengaging Saturday night highlights/unseen shows) synchronise with our British summers of torrential downpours and sticky sticky heatwaves (both of which give everyone a first-hand experience of our climate crisis future), but 2020 got off to a great start with an absolute glut of Majorcan madness thanks to the inaugural series of winter Love Island.

But then, as we all know, pandemic pandemonium took hold and nobody knew how to make a show about cracking on if contestants had to remain two metres apart, not to mention the indecipherable lottery that foreign travel had become.  With a shrug, the whole series was cancelled and my life was ruined.  Then, it was divulged there would be no further winter edition in 2021, meaning it was over a year till the next UK series.  I can cope with supermarket queues and remote working under the threat of redundancy, but this was a major gut punch.  Naturally, I blamed Boris.  Naturally, he blamed immigration.  Surely Love Island 2020 could go ahead if everyone claimed they were testing their eyesight?

ITV redeemed themselves by screening Love Island Australia and, even though it was an old series, it was the vape to the cigarette of my Love Island addiction.  But then someone had the bright idea of taking Love Island USA and giving it to us in real time, allowing a glorious watch-along with our American brethren – it turns out our special relationship extends beyond a catastrophic covid response and being led by privileged petulant blonde fatties.  Of course, I stopped for half a second to wonder how on earth the States were going to run a reality dating show which involves the liberal exchanging of bodily fluids (orally, mostly) in the midst of a world health emergency.

Apparently, the islanders quarantined before entering the villa, ensuring a negative test for the virus.  More importantly, while a luxury island was out of the question, the perfect solution was found in a Las Vegas rooftop.  Offering hot weather and the constant background hum of downtown traffic (interspersed with sirens), the producers had struck gold.  In fact, so much of Love Island’s much-needed escapism comes from its almost complete refusal to engage with the outside world.  There were some initial comments about lockdown, but our couples soon became the truly insular islanders we would expect.  Sure, we’re all sick of corona, but the absence of a single mention of Black Lives Matter among a group of diverse young people seems like a missed opportunity.  Even Justine opening up about her family’s time in a Kenyan refugee camp barely warranted more than a few seconds of screen time when I could happily have watched a one-hour special on the subject.

But, if to Love-Island is to act as if the outside world doesn’t matter, then this series of Love Island USA is serving up pure escapism with our perception of reality deliberately removed.  The pandemic doesn’t matter.  The centuries of racial oppression don’t matter.  The climate crisis doesn’t matter.  All that matters is finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, as being single is the greatest travesty of all.  But, whereas 2019’s season of Love Island USA made the competition to couple up all too obvious, taking the more American approach to reality TV (ruthless game-planning), this new version has realised that a lot of the format’s charm lies in sticking closely to the silliness of the UK original.  At last, we have an irreverent voiceover, mocking every single thing our island young folk get up to.  A glamorous host wonders in on the odd occasion with bad news.  People shout out “got a text!”  The ridiculous challenges have been shipped over and acted out blow by blow (literally), while Casa Amor was a resounding triumph, descending quickly into explosive orgiastic debauchery and creating great telly.  I shall hand it to the Americans – they are TV naturals.  Unlike the Brits, they take themselves a touch more seriously and are better at articulating their emotions, and they will never shy away from a cheesy Hollywood moment with no sense of irony, but the senses of humour are there, alongside the budding friendships you want to join in with.  Of particular note this season is the island girls’ predilection for slipping suddenly into outrageous British accents to ask each other: “Are you alriiiight?”  This contrasts delightfully with their otherwise as-apple-pie American accents and is a healthy reminder of how stupid British people must sound abroad.  And at home.

Of course, the teeth are whiter, but the bikinis and trunks are no tighter.  Some bits are different, some are the same, but it’s enough to tide me over in my lockdown (will we, won’t we) viewing.  Sometimes it’s nice not to hear the T word (Trump) or to see human beings experience social contact without a curtain-twitching neighbour tutting.  And if you’re looking for pure joy, I recommend Cely from this year’s cohort.  Her constant ray of positivity starts every morning when she jumps out of bed with glee while her co-islander squint and groan, before she goes on to tackle every challenge and tribulation with laughter and good humour.  As the final approaches it will be interesting to see what American viewers make of her relationship with Johnny and whether they rate it over the slower and steadier Justine and Caleb.  All I know is I’ll be sorry again when it’s all over, but maybe there’s another international version of Love Island I can distract myself with.

 

Love Island Australia

To what extent is showing a 2018 season of Love Island Australia an adequate replacement for a new series of summer Love Island in the UK?

While this is a question I could ask ITV, it’s actually the essay question I have set myself for this week’s blog entry.  No, sadly I’ve not completed an impressive foreign boxset that I’m going to tell you all about this week (though a third and final series of Dark has dropped).  So we’re turning to what is fast becoming my favourite lockdown viewing.  Let’s be honest, this pandemic has a lot to answer for.  We’re not allowed to have strangers invade our personal space on public transport.  We can’t spend all day in an office wondering what the dog is doing while we’re not home.  We can no longer speculate whether our elected (no, really) government could cope with a national crisis (they can’t).  These are all things we can live with (or without).  But when ITV pointed out that a socially-distanced version of our favourite reality dating show might not fulfil our expectations (you can’t watch a couple under a twitching duvet via night vision if they have to be two metres apart), all while having no clue whether foreign travel would be in any way possible, it felt like the final straw.  This pandemic might just be a bad thing.

However, in a stroke of genius, they decided to whack on another nation’s first series, probably reasoning it was close enough.  The good news about Australia is that we’re super familiar with it.  It doesn’t suffer from the gloss of the US’s TV output (the scripted dramas, I mean, not the dross of their political news).  Generations of Brits grew up on Ozzie soaps – every weekday dinner of mine after primary school in the early 90s was accompanied by Home & Away and Neighbours.  We swap our populations back and forth, nowhere more so than in the media industry (where I work (from home)).  Australiana is pretty easy to get used to.  In addition, the Australian version has all the familiarity of also being filmed in Majorca.  Not in the same villa, mind, but near enough.  I’m struck by the imagined statistic that 80% of this Balearic island’s GDP comes from various nations filming their versions of Love Island on it.  These two points made Love Island Australia a much more obvious choice than the US version, whose departures from key format points and inclusion of actual Americans means it loses all the charm of the original.

Alongside the classic setting, we also have the characteristically irreverent voiceover, though the Celt of choice here is an Irishman instead of a Scot.  The stray cats that visit the villa provide most of the ammo for his humour but I think we can all agree there is nothing funnier than a cat.  Just look at the reason for the internet’s invention: cat videos.  We also have a glamorous hostess entering the villa with bad news for the couples at random junctures.  Sadly, we lost the UK’s OG presenter earlier this year after our vile tabloids hounded Caroline Flack to her death yet faced no consequences, with Laura Whitmore taking over from her dear friend.  In the Australian version, former popstar Sophie Monk proves a feisty equivalent, and her antipodean vowels are so wonderful that I can’t help but suspect she may be a new character from Kath & Kim.  There are still texts with hashtags in them.  In summary, it’s similar enough then…

So, in order to answer the question (and if I learnt anything from GCSE it’s that’s you must make sure you answer the question) we need to look at the contestants.  This was perhaps my greatest stumbling block when it came to convincing myself that I had been provided with a worthy replacement.  They didn’t do much to grab me in the first episode, though the girls’ reluctance to step forth for anyone at all was amusing.  There was a major lack of diversity.  But then, with any season, it takes a few days to marinade and, before long, I began to look forward to catching up on the previous night’s shenanigans with all my new pals after a videocall-heavy day at the laptop.

Somehow, then, this can become an adequate replacement.  But there are certain rules that I must impart when it comes to being able to enjoy it as much as a brand new series of our own.  The first is that you mustn’t look ahead online to find out what the future held in store for these young Australians who are so full of hope in 2018.  To do so would deflate any of the tension that makes the show so compelling.  The second is that you need to attune to a different vibe on the behaviour.  So far, the Australian girls have proven much quicker to attack one another, never hiding their mutual dislike (split along hair colour lines) which, while a contrast to the British besties that emerge, is actually palatable as a more honest approach to the villa’s interpersonal relationships.  The boys seem to be predominantly from the socio-economic group that Australians describe as bogan, but on the whole are a slightly gruffer and less flamboyant equivalent of our own tattooed chaps.

I’ll conclude my essay with the answer to my own question.  Love Island Australia is quite an adequate replacement, offering charm and entertainment in its own way.  To illustrate, we’ll touch on my favourites of each gender.  From the boys, it’s Josh who, while one of the slenderer and under-tattoeed specimens, wins out consistently on personality simply because he speaks with the authority of someone who knows that confidence is the same as, if not better than, intelligence.  When the boys ask him for wisdom, he’s happy to fabricate his responses with the hilarious consequence that they almost always believe him.  From the girls, it’s Millie.  Shrugging off any nonsense from those of her own gender when it comes to disagreements, she’s practical and resilient, and would much rather be writhing around in the pool on an inflated flamingo than getting into arguments.  Wouldn’t we all.

Gogglebox

It’s time to acknowledge something that’s been painfully clear in all of these posts: I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to TV.  Things came to a head in these last few weeks of I’m A Celebrity.  Until the Sky man comes next weekend (so that I have ITV2 HD in time for Love Island – always set and achieve your life goals), I’m in a household without any decent way of recording off my massive OLED telly.  Unable to stomach a nightly hour-long show complete with adverts (especially at Christmas, the most odious time of the year) I decided to watch the show catching up a day behind on ITV Hub.  However, this VoD service has the picture quality of peering through a steamed shower panel, the ads are all still there but at higher frequency and it loses your programme coming out of each break with a cheeky Whoops! message that infuriates more than it sympathises.  Realising it would only be a matter of time before my remote was smashed through my LG 55” screen, I reluctantly switched back to live viewing.  Suddenly, we were back in HD, and I could tell which one was Ant and which one was Dec again.  The dreaded ad breaks became three-minute chunks during which I would find other things to do, banal things like wash up, clean the kitchen, Whatsapp pals or stare into space – each preferable to watching supermarkets argue about who can provide the most magical Christmas.  The bigger drawback, though, was that I became a slave to the appointment to view.

Every evening was a countdown to 9pm, lest I miss the opening link.  Before the I’m A Celeb final, the nightly show was running longer till 10.30, cutting thirty minutes into my sacred bedtime and making the 5.30am alarm the next morning for Crossfit all the more devastating.  It was hell.  I’m relieved it’s over, despite loving the show.  My point is, keeping up with my favourites and devouring new boxsets in order to keep this blog interesting is starting to dominate my evening life.  I’m ending up watching hours each night, normally too exhausted from the early morning and full day of work to do anything productive (first-world problem – it warrants no sympathy).  Once my bum hits the sofa, that’s it.  I’m supposed to be furnishing a new flat, but now that the TV den part of the living room is up and running, I’ve a bad feeling we’re going to be stalled here for some time before there’s any further progress.  I have become a couch potato.  I have become my father.

It’s only fitting, then, that this week I should take a look at another set of people who while away their time on this fascinating planet sedentary on DFS furniture staring at a telly screen (though my sofa is from Heal’s everybody).  So, let’s do Gogglebox.  But, before we go any further, I should confess that this is a programme I don’t watch.  Don’t worry, though, that’s never stopped me throwing in my two pennies’ worth before (see posts on The Apprentice and Keeping Up With The Kardashians).  I’ve channel-surfed on enough Friday evenings to catch sufficient chunks of it to have the measure of the format and its cast.  Please read on while I oscillate wildly between tearing it asunder and extolling its charm.

And I do have some bones to pick with Gogglebox.  For the unaware, it’s a TV programme about people watching TV programmes.  It’s a real-life The Royle Family.  Up and down Britain, we mutually view selected televisual highlights with a cast of actual non-famous normos.  That’s right – we watch people watch telly.  Despite all of the above making it clear I’m wasting my life away, this format is the very definition to me of wasted time, and it’s for this reason I never make any effort to watch it.  Additionally, it shows you all the must-see moments of the week just gone which I rightly suspect would have the effect of making me want to watch even more TV.  This would benefit no-one.  But what I didn’t realise about the filming process was that the cast of Gogglebox know what they’re going to watch – they have scheduled filming sessions.  The production team pick the shows, put them on and then sit down to shoot the reactions.  When I realised this, I was very disappointed.  I thought we had more of a Big Brother vibe: families sign up to a camera being in the living room, go about their viewing lives as normal, and then the best bits are picked up and edited together.  This, I always felt, would be a fairer reflection of what we really watch and how we really react.  It’s excessive and impractical, but that’s just where my imagination goes to first.

Linked to this first fallacy and the fact that the participants know they are being filmed we have the following consequence: their responses aren’t that natural.  It’s an artificial set up.  I therefore can’t escape the feeling they’re all showing off.  Don’t get me wrong, I love showing off.  I do it constantly and enjoy it in others if they are entertaining me.  But Gogglebox acts like it’s a sneak peek behind closed doors to a more humdrum evening, with interstitial shots of household façades leading to cosy living-room set-ups, allowing we privileged few to glimpse real truth from unaware subjects.  But no, it’s just regional accents trying to think of the funniest thing to say about that week’s news or the John Lewis advert.  And it’s at that point I stop caring.

Everyone talks about their favourite Goggleboxers, but I don’t really know who’s who beyond those that have appeared in other reality shows (looking at you, Celebrity Big Brother).  What I do love is the diversity.  We have all points of the UK compass covered here: a wide array of family structures, lifestyle choices, ethnic backgrounds, cultural values, political persuasions, incomes, faiths, genders, ages, sexualities etc – basically every flavour of Brit you can shove out of the way on a crowded train.  What unites them all is a need to redecorate their living rooms.  It’s a bit like Come Dine With Me when you see that someone’s kitchen is a bit natty in comparison to all the show kitchens you see on cookery shows.  That said, given how many of them have hundreds of dogs sprawled across their soft furnishings, rubbing their worms into the fabric and wafting their canine farts over the cushions, there’d be no point updating any of the interiors.  You can sometimes smell the dog breath through the screen.  But it doesn’t matter what I think: what’s touching is the genuine love and affection these family members and friends have for each other.  That, at least, is always reassuringly genuine, if sprinkled with dog hair.

So, who on earth do I think I am talking disparagingly about Gogglebox simply because the people on it watch TV and do showing off?  This whole blog is based around the exact same concept: I watch too much TV and then show off about it, desperately seeking attention for my musings, awaiting offers of global syndication and secretly beaming when friends compliment my writing in real life.  The difference, sadly for me, is that Gogglebox still has millions of viewers, whereas I’m only getting tens of thousands of reads here…

The X Factor

Picture the scene.  It’s autumn 2005 and rather than spending a third year at university, I’ve been shipped off to Germany to fulfil the position of human dictionary at a grammar school under the auspices of a year abroad.  All my shiny brand-new friends are carrying on to their finals without me.  But, thanks to low-cost airlines, I’m able to come back.  After about nine hours of travelling, which includes a bus transfer to a Swiss airport, a 45-minute flight, further trains and nonsense, I reach my hallowed college and burst into a friend’s room expecting a hero’s welcome.  But everyone ignores me.  On the screen of the television holding all their attention, a swarthy muscular chap is cavorting in what looks like an LA swimming pool.  “Guys, it’s me!” I try, convinced they must not have twigged to the significance of my presence.  “Sssh,” they all go, “we wanna see Chico.”  I drop my bags despondently and sink into a seat, well aware that only an advert break will allow attention to revert back to me.

This was my first real exposure to watching The X Factor.  It was the Judges’ Houses section of the second series, famous for Chico’s yearning to be taken through to the Live Shows manifesting in an electrocution-risking impromptu swim with microphone in Sharon Osbourne’s back garden.  I was derisorily regarding my pals’ viewing choice, but the pressures of final examinations had led them to seek solace in the most mindless of TV.  We had been out and about too much to bother with the first series, its super broad appeal as a shiny-floor Saturday night schedule-filler to replace Pop Idol, Popstars and Popstars: The Rivals sparking only contempt as we had the time of our lives spending our student loans on non-academic pursuits.  But the cultural steamrolling of this reality TV show soon proved unavoidable.  Leaving the oldies to watch Strictly Come Dancing, by its fourth series, The X Factor had struck gold and become essential viewing.  The revolution began with the addition of the fourth judge, Dannii Minogue, only for her to be joined in her second year by the then Cheryl Cole in a race to the bottom of constantly younger and tauter-skinned female judges while Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell aged in peace, subject to none of the same scrutiny despite looking much much worse.

Either way, we reached peak X Factor, with two of the X Factor-iest X Factor moments that stick in my mind being the following:

1.      Cheryl Cole stepping down from the judges’ table to perform The Promise with her bandmates from Girls Aloud, all clad in massive sparkling dresses and ITV’s Sunday night schedule being definitively the epicentre of British culture at that moment in time.  Sigh.

2.      Katy Perry debuting her single Firework on the Sunday results show, daring to sing live despite missing all of her notes and leading to some hilarious comments from various friends in their Facebook statuses decrying lyrics that went “Boom boom boom, even bigger than the moon moon moon.”  Everything about this sentence is now vintage and dated.

Now, after decades of manufacturing music acts, The X Factor has taken on a big refresh of itself, finally acknowledging that there probably aren’t any decent singers left in the UK and that everyone is watching Love Island instead.  Nevertheless, let’s celebrate the stages in any popstar’s life as they make their way from hideous unknown to hideous C-lister.

Auditions

Descending on various cities, the crew take over large venues and erect awnings and queuing infrastructure as Dermot O’Leary shouts at a moving crane camera that Sheffield/Manchester/Newcastle/Sutton Coldfield has the X Factor while crowds of wannabes and their dragged-along families make a cross shape with their pudgy arms.  Series have toyed around with closed-room auditions and demanding applicants sing in front of baying audiences.  Either way, we’ll get a background story about each hopeful singer.  The fun part is guessing whether they are going to be outstanding or appalling.  I’ve covered my disdain for sob stories in a previous post on the much less popular The Voice UK, but I’ll repeat the fact that so many people just “want it so bad” as if that’s reason enough to deserve a successful recording career.  There are two types of delicious moment we are aiming for here.  One is watching someone deluded get a reality check regarding their superstar aspirations: they can’t actually sing in tune.  The other is the genuine excitement when a great new act is discovered.  Nobody mentions the fact that everyone has been pre-vetted by production before being trotted out in front of the judges, as we’re here for the entertainment factor, relying on Cowell to interrupt singers mid-flow to demand different songs in the rudest way possible – leading to one of the best Bo’ Selecta! apings known to the modern world: “No offence, but I wish your mother was dead.”  But in fact, the most offensive part is always Louis Walsh likening any performer of colour to literally any other black celebrity: “You remind me of a young Moira Stuart.”

Bootcamp

This is my favourite part but it’s always rushed through.  By this stage, you’ve forgotten everyone from the Auditions, let alone the ones you really liked.  Clusters of hopefuls are cut willy nilly, sent packing to a big waiting coach for the long trip back to the regions.  There’s always a silly sausage who gets trolleyed the night before and then stinks up the stage as a result.  Cruelly, acts are made to sing together in an unnecessary test of their ability to collaborate with other artists before they’ve even established themselves.  The culmination is the judge reveal to each of the categories.  In separate conference rooms, the Overs, the Boys, the Girls and the Groups wait anxiously, hoping more than anything that their chances aren’t killed by being assigned Louis Walsh.

Six Chair Challenge

This was injected in recent years to overhaul the tiredness of the format in its later decades.  A final bunch in each category is whittled down to six.  One by one, they sing before an incensed mob, receiving a chair/wonky stool if they’ve done well enough.  Gripped by their own emotion and attention-seeking, the judges give away too many chairs too early, resulting in cruel swapsies where the privilege of sitting is snatched from young hopefuls.  However, the cruellest part is the fact that they only supply one wobbly stool for the groups, leaving the majority of the band hovering awkwardly on foot behind a frontman.

Judges’ Houses

If you end up with a chair, then you get to go on holiday with your judge.  You don’t get to take the chair with you, though.  This is the best product placement opportunity for airlines on UK television, as we’re guaranteed overexcited scenes in airports where the acts in each category find out their destination.  The unlucky bastards under Louis Walsh are guaranteed a trip to drizzly Dublin, so you can always manage a smile at their disappointed faces.  Meanwhile, Cowell and the others hit up glamorous US and European cities, though the contestants with criminal records conveniently drop out when they are denied visas.  Everything that takes place from this point on is pure over-emotional slush, but first each judge reveals their celebrity help-judge.  Usually it’s some famous pal who has nothing more interesting to say than “I’m glad I’m not the one deciding,” which is beyond unhelpful, though at least you can rely on Sinitta to be making suggestions about how to use foliage as a clothing option.  Each act performs, normally in an awkward spot by a swimming pool, probably with the sun in their eyes.  The judges stay up late agonising, before the most drawn-out sequence known to broadcasting.  Each act is told face-to-face if they’re being taken through to Live Shows.  A masterclass on how to respond was given by Rylan in 2012, but we end up oscillating wildly between happiness and devastation.  It’s at this point that all my favourites are normally culled, but Dermot is always there to show he doesn’t really care either way.

Live Shows

And then here we go: the countdown to Christmas.  All the acts sing every Saturday, usually according to some sort of theme.  Big Band Week seems sadly to be long gone, but sometimes it’s Guilty Pleasures and occasionally it’s the back catalogue of whoever they can get to sing on the Sunday, however spurious.  I like to imagine the least appropriate acts for this sort of week: the greatest hits of System of a Down or Marilyn Manson for example.  If you thought Judges’ Houses were drawn out, these shows can sometimes take several years to get through.  Each judge intros their act, typically looking down the wrong camera.  Cue jeopardy-emphasising VT where expressions like “Barry’s gotta nail it this week, or he’s going home” abound, and we forget these people literally get to return to warm homes and gainful employment, rather than the religious persecution and unbridled violence we’re all too willing to send Syrian refugees to.  The acts perform in front of cameramen who can’t keep still for five seconds, so you see many shots of everything and nothing, before the judges give unfounded criticism based on how much they want to be cheered by the studio audience.  Dermot then opens the phone lines and you vote to save your favourite act.  I’ve never missed an election (though nobody I’ve ever voted for as ever got into power) but I wouldn’t be caught dead actually ringing up to vote on this show.  I prefer the sense of disappointment when my favourites are ejected.  Voting stats are released once the series are over and the outright winner has normally already stretched ahead by week one.

Live Shows – The Results

In historical times, people would find out who had got the fewest votes on the same night, like barbarians.  Now, to stretch things out, the results are in a separate Sunday show.  This was to complement perfectly the winning Sunday line-up of The X Factor Results and Downton Abbey, trapping millions of Brits on their sofas for two whole hours.  The show used to open with the never well-rehearsed group number, a highlight for fans of awkwardness.  Guest acts perform, and things get meta when a previous season’s winner comes back, free to deliver their single without the judges being allowed to slag them off this time.  Finally, Dermot reveals the bottom two and then the judges decide who to save.  There are tears and tantrums, but nothing beats Deadlock.  This is when the judges are split and we have to go back to the vote result.  The nation comes to a standstill and everyone has carte blanche to rape and pillage freely until a disappointed minstrel is being shown their best bits.  Through attrition, we are finally left with the, er, finalists.

The Final

Hello Wembley!  These days, the Final has outgrown a TV studio and a whole arena needs hiring out to get through the inordinate pageantry of selecting who’s got the X Factor.  Established acts clamour to promote latest releases in and among the finalists’ own best songs, with a quick comedic break offered by the exploitative but necessary wheeling out of all the worst singers from that year’s series.  No expense is spared, as long as that expense is spent on confetti cannons.  Tradition dictates the finalists duet with the planet’s most successful popstars.  One peak year saw Beyoncé grace our stage, but these days it tends to be the awful Robbie Williams, who is guaranteed to forget his own lyrics.  Our winner is crowned and rather than crossing live to Andi Peters at the CD factory, the winner’s single is available for immediate download.  Our champion tries to perform it before being rushed by the other finalists and Dermot eventually gives up trying to keep control of the activities on stage.  Even winning the show doesn’t guarantee success – more than half of the victors have faded into obscurity.  But, sure as eggs is eggs, another generation of schoolchildren will expect overnight success in pop music, should their careers as YouTubers or pro footballers not work out.]

I jest!  I’ve slagged this show off throughout, but I really do bloody love it.  Working in media buying, I dreamed ITV would one day invite me.  But then my team did a licensing deal for a client directly with the production company.  Next thing I knew, I found myself at Fountain Studios for a results show.  I was meant to be looking after clients, but I was so excited that they were forced to take on a parental role to my hyperactive teenage behaviour.  Taylor Swift performed Shake It Off and I forgot to breathe throughout the whole performance.  Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited back, both to the Live Shows and The Final itself.  The best part of the Live Shows is mingling backstage with the friends and family of the contestants, lording it over them with my free-drink wristband while they’re forced to pay.  The acts then emerge from their performances and I’m always surprised by how tiny some of them are.  Throughout filming, Cowell spends every commercial break outside smoking (assuming the fag packets are stored in his vile bootcut jeans, while the lighter nestles among his toilet brush barnet), while the female judges have their hair and make-up constantly touched up.  The Final is a massive undertaking, with a VIP ball in a nearby hotel before and after.

This blog has made it clear on repeated occasions that a lot of my viewing tastes align with those of teenage girls, so my fandom of The X Factor should come as no surprise.  This year, it’s taking a break while other formats are trialled, and while it may never ascend to its giddy heights, it still remains one of the biggest shows on commercial television, despite its overly commercial, sensationalised and desperate-for-drama tendencies.  Let’s be honest, nobody delays their Saturday evening out any more to catch The X Factor, plus you can always catch up the next day with the benefit of fast forward.  But I’ll never stop being charmed by the great unwashed’s unbridled desire for five minutes of fame.  So, in tribute, let’s make me famous by telling a friend how good this blog is.

The Apprentice

For the landmark 117^th post of Just One More Episode, I’ll be returning not only to the recently talked-about topic of programmes I don’t watch (like Naked Attraction) but also to the rarely covered theme of programmes I actively hate (Altered Carbon).  While this blog has mostly remained a safe space of positivity about all the different boxsets out there (with a healthy dose of my own self-obsession), this week we are turning our smarmy observations and cutting critiques to the absolute pile of dross that is The Apprentice.  A fifteenth series has slipped onto air this month to a collective shrug of indifference and I’m happy to say I feel no need whatsoever to catch a single episode.  Part of this is now down to the fact I’ve reached the stage of flat ownership where I can have friends round for dinner (especially ones that invite themselves), so I’m too busy serving up Viennetta as a feasible dessert option to tune into this BBC flagship production.  So, eighties ice cream products aside, let’s go through the reasons why The Apprentice should be stricken from the TV guide.  And just to recap quickly the premise for anyone who’s never grasped it, this show is, in short, competitive job interviewing.  Yes, really.

It’s reality TV but pretends not to be

During the first few series from 2005 onwards, this programme’s biggest crime (against my personal view of what’s wrong and what’s right) was to provide a route to reality TV for viewing snobs that claimed not to be able to tolerate the genre.  “Big Brother!” they would cry, “I can’t be watching that bunch of wannabes desperate to be famous.  But have you seen The Apprentice?”  I would sneer at them, pointing out they should just own the pleasure they take in consuming trash TV.  If you never miss an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians or Love Island then you might as well own that behaviour.  Anyone who judges you for it isn’t important.  Yet The Apprentice legitimised our natural interest in watching ordinary people humiliate themselves by dressing itself up in the pinstripes of actual business.  A tenuous link to product development, sales, marketing and boardroom practices suddenly meant that it was highbrow to watch 20-year-olds from Essex slag each other off while desperately trying to stay on the telly as long as possible.  Frankly, unforgiveable dishonesty.

The stupid tasks

Each week’s episode is themed around an industry, whether confectionary, fashion, events or some combination of all three to make cold hard cash.  A common trope of reality TV is to get people to showcase a skill but with the added pressure of an unfeasibly short period of time in which to do so (Great British Bake Off’s timed technical challenges, or the matter of days allowed to master a Quickstep in Strictly Come Dancing).  But somehow, The Apprentice stretches this too far by making ill-matched groups of applicants think up, refine, manufacture, distribute, market and sell a product within mere moments.  If this wasn’t enough of a recipe for failure, you need to factor in that the all team members are working against each other, with their interests vested in making everyone but themselves look as incompetent as possible.  What ensues are montages of the contestants, dressed in their best banker-wear, running around London streets doing everything wrong before a classic bollocking in the boardroom.

Stupid Lord Sugar

Enter (from a tiny door in the middle of the room, presumably coming from some sort of subterranean troll hole) Lord Sugar, the man whose apprentice these people are supposed to want to be.  Apparently he’s done well in big business, but he doesn’t strike me as someone dynamic enough to thrive in 2019’s brutal economy.  His furrowed brow thinly muffles the sounds of his mind whirring as he dodderily computes what’s said to him.  Fair enough, what’s being said is normally an accusatory argument between a handful of competitive business wannabes, but it all seems a bit much.  Relishing his own interruptions, our Alan then wheels out dad-gags that I swear have been written and fed to him by a team of eighties comedians.  Or sugar-jacked ten-year-olds.  If he announced “Well you’re a stupid poo poo head” to someone I don’t imagine a single eyebrow would rise in in surprise.  But that’s the thing about interviewing: best practice is to put the candidate at ease.  Instead, Sugar rules by fear and intimidation, pointing rudely and mistakenly firing people before he’s even employed them.  The apprentices might be inane, but I would feel more comfortable watching them judge him for his contributions to humanity.

The stupid contestants

This is a bit harsh as my only point of reference here has been the odd one that’s ended up on Celebrity Big Brother.  James Hill was actually a top lad, and I was even won over by Katie Hopkins in the house, watching her reason carefully with Katie Price in a way that betrayed a side to her which today’s unacceptable media persona has shat all over.  The rest come across as officewear-clad interns that talk a big game about their skills but end up set up for failure by each week’s task.  One thing I’ve learned in my working life is that nobody ever looks good blaming someone else, and yet these people sit in front of Sugar pointing fingers at poor old Jenny for not selling enough soap.  Maybe squabbling children is what’s missing from the world of professional behaviour, but it has me reaching for the remote.

Its crimes against humanity

Our UK version is based on an original US iteration that first gave a platform to Donald Trump.  This says it all.

Phone abuse

We’ll look back at The Apprentice UK’s most significant contribution to culture: holding the iPhone below your chin while talking on speaker.  This action became characteristic during the contestants’ various wild goose chases, coordinating errand teams sabotaging the overall effort on the sly.  Now it’s taken hold on the top deck of many of London’s buses, which is great if you want to be involved in other people’s banal chitter chatter.  Similarly, the tension of each episode’s climactic boardroom scene is supposedly elevated by a receptionist using the world’s oldest landline to tell the nervously waiting applicants as and when Sugar is summoning them to his shiny boardroom for some more showing off.  This all needs to stop.

In summary then, for those that might have missed the nuance, I really do take exception to this show.  It’s trash masquerading as premium, a theme that runs through the whole operation, from the contestants to Captain Sugar himself.  I don’t mind lots of showing off, but once someone’s screamed “look at me!” long enough to get your attention, they should have something interesting to tell you.  This is never the case in The Apprentice.  I don’t watch it, and I don’t like it.  Of course, loyal readers, you’re free to make your own decisions, just like Sugar is free of UK employment law in order to make his own hires.  But just be honest with yourself: you’re watching it because you like trash.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

After last week, we’re continuing the theme of keeping up with various things.  Whereas my last post was about the very British pastime of projecting the behaviour of a superior class on one’s friends and neighbours, revealed through sitcom chaos to be as exhausting as it is hilarious (Keeping Up Appearances), this week I’ll be linking that nineties sitcom with the very LA pastime of being a Kardashian, this time projecting the behaviour of a superior class not just on one’s own friends and neighbours, but on the whole world.

Now, you may have asked yourself at various points who or what a Kardashian is.  I have to admit I don’t really recall how and when they came into my consciousness, let alone that of the planet’s.  In isolation, a Kardashian sounds like some sort of medical mishap named after an obscure gynaecologist: “Oh dear, she’s got Kardashians again.”  In fact, for those that don’t know, the Kardashians are a family that is also a series of products.  I’ve paused here to see how I can succinctly explain how they all fit together, but I’m going to have to do it in long form.  We come to know these products, sorry, family members over something like forty-two series of their reality TV show, plus an array of spin-offs.  I’m not actually a willing viewer of any of this.  Sure, it ticks a lot of my boxes.  Trashy?  Yes.  Reality TV?  Most definitely.  The real world filtered to look better than it actually is?  Absolutely.  But there’s a hollow ringing to its message that makes each minute seem like time that could be better spent doing something else: watching You’ve Been Framed, for example, or thinking fondly of childhood memories.  So, let’s meet the Kardashians we are trying to keep up with:

Kris Jenner

Our matriarch styles herself as the momager, a title that’s as apt as it is sinister.  Her shrewd skills at self-promotion have seen her many progeny foisted into the spotlight for their earning potential.  It feels a bit wrong, but she’s very good at it, so we have at least unearthed some semblance of talent behind the worldwide fame.  She’s a loose cannon who thrills at embarrassing her children – you can’t miss her fun-loving attitude, even beneath several strata of expensive make up.

Kourtney Kardashian

The eldest sister, but the second-best wit.  She wins for being first to reproduce, with her most scathing stare reserved for ex-husband Scott Disick, who enjoys himself far too much throughout the whole show.

Kim Kardashian West

The internet requires nothing further to be said about this person.

Khloé Kardashian

The wittiest sister: Khloé has the best personality and is therefore the most attractive within a family that is already inordinately appearance conscious.  Her lines alone almost make the show worth watching, but you can actually scroll through endless gifs of them in various Buzzfeed listicles instead.

Kendall and/or Kylie Jenner

There are some younger half-sisters whose names also begin with K.  I have trouble distinguishing them but it doesn’t matter as both/either are wildly more successful than I will ever be.

Rob Kardashian

Yes, there’s a brother as well, but they couldn’t think of a name beginning with K for him, so this has caused him to spiral into obesity and obscurity.

Caitlyn Jenner

Before transitioning to live as a woman, this was Kris’s husband and the father of the two youngest daughters, with the elder siblings’ father, Robert Kardashian (the lawyer off the OJ trials) having passed away.  Divorcing Kris with mixed results, Caitlyn can now hair-flick with the rest of the Kardashians, though has faced as much criticism as praise since coming out as trans.  I’ve always found this individual wooden and boring, regardless of gender, so if that doesn’t make me a trans ally, I don’t know what does.

Anyway, that’s enough slagging off of real people.  There are also various babies and hangers on.  One pal, Jonathan Cheban, only got his spot on UK Celebrity Big Brother purely through dint of being Kim’s friend.  What an achievement.  Though I suppose Kim only got famous in the first place for being a chum of Paris Hilton.  Allegedly the whole concept of the show was conceived in partnership with Ryan Seacrest, but I can’t hear that name anymore without thinking of the Bojack Horseman character of A Ryan Seacrest Type so we’ll get straight into my other reasons for finding life too short to watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

While there is humour and drama, and plenty of escapism in this guilty pleasure, it’s their self-obsession that sees me itching to switch the station.  It’s hard to identify with people so privileged who still find so much to moan about, either in their soft-focus, flatteringly lit pieces to camera, or during the constant staged conversations in various expensive kitchens where everyone stands between the units pretending to eat food while never letting their smartphones out of their clutches, probably because another family member is on speakerphone.  While watching them jetting around the world, enjoying sumptuous meals out, splurging on jewellery, clothes and skin creams, the girls harp on about their anxieties and the resentment they harbour for each other.  They complain about their lack of privacy, which is delicious when you consider the camera crew has been invited into their private life (and I won’t even dignify Kim’s sex tape with a mention.  Oh.  Whoops.)  Rarely does the outside world get a mention, or do they prioritise using their platform for greater social good.

This was perfectly encapsulated by the 2017 fallout of Kendall Jenner’s appearance in a controversial Pepsi ad that indicated a carbonated sugary beverage could solve America’s entrenched racial inequality.  The episode was filled with Kardashians sympathising with their billionaire sibling, lamenting how hard she had worked only for people to be nasty about her on social media.  The real issue of a society that seems culturally prejudiced against people of colour was not mentioned.

So what is this show’s appeal?  An old flatmate used to watch it religiously, and it was only after a few viewings that I realised this wasn’t ironic consumption: she really did love the girls.  They sell, through their show and their social platforms, a lifestyle that is aspirational.  By being voyeurs to their TV-produced storylines, that lifestyle becomes tantalisingly close to reach.  This is what drives the capitalist minion in all of us.  Skipping down the street with a takeaway blended might make you feel like some Hollywood A-lister, but you’re really just a few quid worse off, consuming calories you don’t need and generating plastic waste that will end up in Our Planet.  And you still live in Leatherhead.

As a family, the Kardashians are winning at sweating their assets and their asses to make cash.  They are swept up in their own hype, but we needn’t be.  There’s not much to keep up with besides a lot of spending, some drama and only thinking about yourself.  I don’t know why I feel so aggrieved that they don’t use their fame for more good – they’re not the only celebrities setting questionable examples.  Just look at British right-wing politicians.  I think it’s because I am so aware of their influence on a generation of girls needing more support and sustenance than unrealistic expectations and unfair comparisons.  I have a way to prevent the Kardashians ever getting a hold of me: I just think of the Big Fat Gypsy Kardashians from the Keith Lemon Sketch Show.  They’ve got the biggest caravan on the site, so they do.