Remember BBC1's Bonekickers, which was let loose over the Summer? Here's my review of the first episode to jog your memory.
It was a sub-Dan Brown piece of escapism created by the guys behind Life on Mars, Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, in which a team of archeologists would go hunting for precious relics, such as the cross of Jesus Christ, get chased by other people who wanted it, then at the last possible moment they'd burn/throw into a bucket of acid/smash with a mallet the very precious, unique, vital relic they'd dedicated their entire careers to searching for and treating with respect. Then they'd head down the pub.
Now, ever since it's been on, I've been pondering a couple of issues that Bonekickers has raised
- Ashley Pharoah (apparently) gets miffed about criticism and likes to leave messages on The Guardian's blogs insulting Gareth McLean and co as a result (do a search for TheWordBoy, which is also his Dome of Stars name). How odd
- It's much harder to suspend your disbelief for a UK show than for a US show
The second point is the one I want to look at. Why is it that something like the US's Relic Hunter seems almost acceptable as a bit of escapist fun, when Bonekickers isn't?
Is it just we hold our own shows to higher standards? Is there something about the unfamiliarity of US settings that forces us to suspend our disbelief anyway - so it's a smaller leap to other more far-out ideas? Does the US simply have a greater tradition of escapist shows, so we've learnt to adapt? Are the US's actors simply more credible in escapist entertainment, while our slightly more down at heel, less gym-friendly actors don't look like they could run for more than a couple of minutes anyway? Or was it simply that Bonekickers wasn't very good?
And US readers: do you have any ideas on this and is there a similar situation for you? Do you hold US shows up to a higher standard than UK shows or vice versa? And do you even agree that there are more escapist shows on US TV?
Over to you, guys. What do you think?
September 5, 2008 | Reply
Bonekickers wasn't any good.
September 5, 2008 | Reply
Well, Bonekickers was on primetime BBC1 (the #1 channel in the UK, in most peoples' opinion), whereas Relic Hunter aired on a minority Canadian channel. You automatically expect more from a BBC product. If Bonekickers was made by Bravo and aired in the afternoons, it would probably be a cult hit. Also, the creators were the team behind Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, so anyone aware of that expected higher quality. Anyway, Bonekickers was quite good fun if you approached it as preposterous "what if?" entertainment. Just a shame its pedigree had everyone expecting so much more.
September 5, 2008 | Reply
Oh some of the stuff written by TheWordBoy is brilliant. This in particular had me laughing for a good minute or so:
"How about television reviewers? Not that there are many left now, poor loves. As relevant to the machinations of contemporary broadcasting as a dodo is to space travel."
Even now that makes me laugh, so much so that I'm going to use the last sentence as my new sub-header for my blog.
You've made my day, thanks.
*goes off for a good laugh*
September 5, 2008 | Reply
I think it's a case of a bad show simply being a bad show. I'm just glad my snarky livejournal recaps of the show weren't seen by Ashely Pharoah!
September 5, 2008 | Reply
But they were seen by those lovely people at www.burn-gorman.com :P
September 6, 2008 | Reply
It's all true, I am jealous of Burn Gorman and his monkey face.
September 6, 2008 | Reply
Prove it. Post a picture of yourself! :p
September 7, 2008 | Reply
Unfortunately, I'm so hideous that my image cannot be captured by conventional photography. This is why I spend my time lurking in the sewers of Cardiff, living on a steady diet of rat whilst blogging about TV and being mean.
September 7, 2008 | Reply
Is that Hugh Bonneville pretending to be the Fourth Doctor?
September 7, 2008 | Reply
It's more Hugh Bonneville pretending to be Tom Baker down the pub.
September 8, 2008 | Reply
So the question is, if the show had been in the same time slot on BBC1 but had been made in the US by Aaron Sorkin, say, and had a US cast, would it still have been regarded so badly?
September 8, 2008 | Reply
I'm not sure that it would be comparing like with like, the Yanks are so much slicker at these kind of shows then us that we probably do suspend our disbelief more. Also they have a way of making SF/fantasy stuff which makes it seem more real then ours (well they did till Nu Who came along) - Buffy/The X Files etc was always more compelling then similar stuff in Britain at the time. So, I think, Rob, the answer is yes, it would be better, but I also suspect they'd have had better scripts too.
It works with books too. When I was editing teen fiction everything I published from the States was 10X cooler then the stuff I published here, I think we suffer from being too realistic. We probably don't suspend our own disbelief enough. It's still the case in kids books. My ten year old reads about domestic abuse in Jacqueline Wilson and the moral complexities of Doing It in Meg Cabot. One seems far too close to home, the other just lala land (well Meg Cabot's heroine is a princess after all).