James reviews Doctor Who on BBC1, Belle Gibson: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist on ITV1 and Comedy Legends: The Marx Brothers on Sky arts.

Hello, I’m James Brook, and welcome to the twentieth episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’ 

This is where I review suggested Freeview programs, or something I’ve picked myself. Go to IReviewFreeview.com to search, or listen or indeed read and/or comment on all my reviews. And if you want to see what I’ll be reviewing next time, visit the page ‘What’s up next.’ That’s IReviewFreeview - all one word - dot com.

In this episode, I will review: 

Doctor Who (S 1 Ep 5: Dot and Bubble) on BBC1

Belle Gibson: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist on ITV1 and

Comedy Legends (S 2 Ep 1: The Marx Brothers) on Sky arts.

That’s a chap with two hearts and a space bending police box, an internet thing of which I know nothing, and a documentary about legendary comics that I haven’t watched for many years. Should be fun. 

By the way, the image for this episode was generated by a free AI image generator with the prompt:

Create an image featuring Karl Marx’s iconic beard emerging from a blue police box while in the background is the Instagram logo.

Yeh, I know, I know: instead of the Marx Brothers - which seemed to generate much AI confusion - I’ve used Karl Marx. I even tried to get AI to generate a prompt, and it gamely had a bash, but results were poor. So, there y’go, and if I’ve lost some listeners thinking it might be a party political broadcast on behalf of the communist sector of the police box appreciation society, so be it.

Whatever, here we go:

Doctor Who (S 1 Ep 5: Dot and Bubble) on BBC1, Saturday 1st June, 6:50pm 

Dr Who. (haha) Dr Who! As a teenager, I watched the first ever episode, and was hooked from the start. I think it was the signature tune that did it. Up till then, I’d never been particularly influenced by music, but as those initial electronic, rhythmic and mysterious pulses of sound pinged around our living room, well, wow!

I’d heard nothing so totally, grab-you-by-the-balls compelling. And then there was the doctor - an old crinkly with a sonic screw driver - fighting fearsome foes the Lone Ranger could only dream of. Cybermen. Daleks. And others I’ve now forgotten.

After a while, big news: grandfatherly Dr. Who regenerated into enigmatic uncle Dr. Who, who played a penny whistle and - if I remember correctly - wore checked trousers. He was my favourite, but I was already losing interest: it all seemed rather tired, stupid and somewhat clunky. Pretty soon, Dr Who became a bit like politics or the Monarchy: something boring that went on in the background but was nothing to do with me. 

And there he stayed for many, many years. I was vaguely aware he’d turned female for a while, and then back.

But now, I’m doing a podcast (whoo), and I thought, in an idle moment: let’s give it a go. Why not.

Long review short: I’m very glad I did. It was sharp and clever, with an underlying analogy directly relating to the world we all seem to live in right now: that we can all be locked in our bubbles and refuse to see the reality of what is going on around us.

The format has changed: depressingly, it starts with a reference to the ‘The WhoVerse’ and then we’re plunged into the story. A wide-eyed girl, Lindy, wakes up. Around her head is a bubble made of virtual screens, allowing her to chat with her friends. When she moves, the bubble moves with her. A voice tells her how to get to the bathroom: ‘turn right, three steps. turn left. One step.’

So far, so Black Mirror.

A stranger appears, in her bubble. It’s Dr Who (hurrah), warning her there are monsters in the real world! Monsters she can’t see! (woo)

That’s the cue for the stunning opening credits, with the Tardis surfing a cosmic vortex to the well known - and once again thrilling - music. Good stuff!

Lindy - her head as ever in the bubble - walks along a street, being directed to avoid obstacles ‘one step left.’ We see - but she doesn’t - a body being dragged out of shot, leaving a trail of blood.

She gets to work and sits in an office. ‘Work’ seems to be just chatting with her friends, who - slightly worryingly - keep disappearing and dropping offline. Again, the doctor and his sidekick pop up. They persuade Lindy to drop her bubble, and she sees a giant slimy maggoty thing consuming one of her workmates as if he were nothing more than a donut.

Wow! I must admit, I went aahh! It just shows how a small child lives within us all. 70 years ago I’d have been truly, truly terrified, hid behind the sofa and had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Parents would have sent letters of protest to the BBC.

But I suppose small people now, used to playing video games and whatnot, are more resilient and comfortable with CGI monsters than an old crinkly with all the visual imagination of a tortoise.

(poof!)

So Lindy has to get out of there, and the Dr. gives her directions. Walking without the bubble means she keeps bashing into lampposts, which is fun.

A hero figure turns up, a chap with an fetching grin, and together they find the start of the escape tunnel.

Meantime, the Dr. has worked out people are being killed in a set order, and Lindy’s next on the list! 

Now we’re galloping into the last ten minutes: will Lindy and her new found hero escape? Where do the maggoty monsters come from and … (sigh) …well, basically, what on earth is going on?

Unfortunately, this is where the plot sticks its head up its own backside and vanishes with a fart of unsatisfactory and inconclusive reasons for why things are as they are.

I suspect, having got the momentum going, they didn’t want to pause for an explanation, even if one could be found. And it might have been the correct thing to do. Not everyone wears my reviewers’ hat, and not everyone likes a plot neatly tied by the Sellotape of logical consistency.

But I have to say it annoys me. But so what? I’m not the target audience and no-one gives a toss what I say anyway.

But it was good that the Dr. didn’t take centre stage and - until the end - remained just an image on a postcard sized virtual video. 

When it came, the ending was refreshingly downbeat, with an unexpected veneer of sadness, a hint of racism and an overall sombre tone. Lindy, after managing to escape one bubble, quickly assembles a new one and departs towards an uncertain and dangerous future. It was a much more adult and thoughtful end than I was expecting.

As I said: the parallels with the world we live in now were rife, clearly intentional and somewhat scary. So well done, the people in charge.

Now to recap: if - like me - you haven’t watched Dr Who for a few decades, then I urge you to give it a go and - from the evidence of this episode - it’ll particularly appeal to fans of Black Mirror. 

I’ve put it on series record and I might even pick up a few past episodes on BBC iPlayer. So what more can I say?

Moving on:

Belle Gibson: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist on ITV1, Sunday June 2, 10:20pm

Instagram. (Urrgh!) More social media nonsense. I keep thinking I ought to have at least a FaceBook account, but then I think what for? I really can’t see the point. All this sharing and staying in contact. Who requires constant affirmation they’ve got friends? I can’t help but think it’s like a totally blind man putting a ping-pong ball into a toilet to help him aim straight at something he can’t see anyway.

I have to confess when I first read the title: ‘Belle Gibson: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist’ I took ‘Worst’ to mean she was terrible at it. Like the chap who organised that Willy Wonka chocolate thing in Scotland, or someone so inept they’re now living in a skip and foraging for food in the bins round the local take-aways.

But sadly, no. Oh well, one more to add to the list of epic failures that weren’t.

Now, this is odd. It turns out the episode broadcast on the Sunday is not the same as the repeat broadcast a day later, on the Monday. The Sunday one just suddenly stopped, almost in mid-air. It was a bit like finishing the fish and realising the chips and mushy peas are missing.

But the Monday repeat had the fish, the chips, the mushy peas and a generous dollop of tartar sauce!

So I’ve rewritten what I’d already written. Will I get an apology from ITV for screwing up my schedule? (ha!) of course not.

Anyway, here we go. Note the change of date and time!

Belle Gibson: The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist on ITV1, Monday June 3, 11:15pm

This is a good, serious documentary, not one cobbled together from web downloads by someone eating salt and vinegar crisps.

It starts with people’s reactions to Belle’s exposure as a fraud. Reporters explain what is happening. Friends - helpfully labelled ‘former friends’ pop up to say how devastated they are.

Then there’s a quick resume of Belle’s rapid rise. Her fabricated story of being a cancer sufferer in remission through healthy living and whole foods had obviously struck a cord. Her followers ticked up into the millions. 

She was, it seems, a total social media natural and a fine cook, posting videos and updates and recipes.

A social media influencer consultant (hummm) popped up spouting social media influencer consultant bollocks and a chorus of tweets dotted the screen telling us how Belle had inspired them. 

Soon, she had a paid for app, followed by a global cookbook deal with Penguin. Apple became interested and agreed to pre-load her app on their new Apple watch.

All was shiny and good: the apex of her career.

One of her friends became suspicious when Belle had a seizure after being asked a slightly awkward question, then recovered rapidly when someone suggested phoning for an ambulance.

She sent emails around saying Belle was a fraud.

A professor of Oncology said Belle’s condition - as detailed by Belle - was a near impossibility. She added ‘Eating well doesn’t cure cancer.’

And it also transpired none of the money she’d promised to charity - a promise that greatly helped gain sales of both book and app - was paid. 

She was exposed on the front pages and very, very quickly, the wheels fell off her bus. The chorus of tweets turned nasty and vicious, and the experts became wise after the event, saying everyone else - particularly that strange beast Penguin Apple - should have done due diligence and fact-checked.

Eventually she was fined 410,000 Australian dollars and remained tight-lipped and stoney-faced when surrounded by a crowd of reporters shoving microphones in her face.

She refused to pay the fine, ignored the whole thing, went to ground and more or less vanished.

Until, suddenly, a video surfaced showing her in Ethiopian dress, fundraising for an Ethiopian community. When they learnt who she was, they rejected her.

All this happened some years ago. The diligently, the documentary recycled through the cast of reporters and former friends.

Some were still angry, but most had become reflective. Time had mellowed their initial outrage but no one had much sympathy for her. Even if they didn’t want her to go to jail, at the very least they wanted her to say sorry and pay the fine. Her tearful brother, looking out to sea, just wanted an explanation. 

The program ended with a couple of notes: to date she has not paid the fine, and she ignored a request for a comment.

Now to wrap up.

As I said, I somewhat pride myself on being a dinosaur and loftily ignoring all this social media nonsense. (Pooof!) who needs it? But it’s hard to tell exactly what is social media and what is not. When I want to know how to do something I just Google it, or perhaps use AI. But search engines and artificial intelligence are both dipping into the same well: the vast, almost organic cloud of information, misinformation, supposition, truth and half truth sat on millions of interconnected computers dotted around the globe.

Even the people that own it - if that’s the right term - have very little idea of what is there, or how it fits - or doesn’t fit - together. And as for controlling it, no chance. Although China seems to be giving it a good go by eliminating websites it dislikes, but is that sustainable in the long term…? 

I have my doubts. But in a world where even verified facts can be questioned and history rewritten, who knows?

If you probe too deeply, you end up believing in nothing. 

Now … moving on:

Comedy Legends (S 2 Ep 1: The Marx Brothers) on Sky arts, Sunday June 2, 10:25pm 

I asked my 35 year old daughter what she knew of the Marx Brothers. First she thought he or they was or were a psychologist, then perhaps something to do with communism, and last, fetching a memory from somewhere, ‘er .. something to do with comedy films?’ 

I said: “Ah-Ha! There ain’t no sanity clause!“ but she just looked blankly at me, as if I’d gone nuts. But then she, unlike me, is not a B.O.F. or boring old fart, while I’m a fully paid-up member. It might just be that I’ve stumbled across one of the defining hallmark of B.O.Fs - or ‘BOF’s - if you know who the Marx brothers were, then you’re a BOF.

Or maybe that’s just another instance of not wishing to join any club which would have me as a member.

(ha ha, Boom Boom!!) 

OK, let’s just go back a bit. For the non-BOF listeners: the Marx brothers were very, very famous and influential US cinema and stage comedians in the 1930s and 40s. They made fast moving, somewhat absurdist films stuffed with verbal and physical comedy. 

Several of these films are regarded as comic masterpieces and are still shown regularly on TV. Many of the current tropes in comedy can be traced back to them.

There were 3 well defined and distinct main brothers:

Groucho: had an absurd painted moustache, specialised in wisecracks and verbal wit.

Chico: wore a Tyrolean hat, spoke in an exaggerated Italian accent and usually played a con-man

Harpo: sported a curly haired blond wig and never spoke. Communicated with honks from a bicycle horn. A disruptive, mischievous, physically adept manchild. 

And if you’ve taken all that in and want to know more, you’re a nascent BOF in waiting: look for their films late night on Channel 4.

This laudatory documentary was the usual mixture of talking heads, film clips and anecdotes. Barry Cryer and Tony Hawkes formed an uncritical Marx Brothers fan club, with others chipping in to add perspective and game attempts to analyze the unanalyzable.

All the usual clips were displayed, from the sanity clause one (perhaps the most famous punch line in movie history) through the wiskered airmen (‘we’re late because we ran out of petrol halfway across the Atlantic and had to go back for more’) to Harpo eating the top half of a lit candle after removing the flame onto his finger, taking a bite and moving the flame back.

Basically, it was a useful introduction for any channel-hopping non-BOF out there, and a chance for us BOFs to refresh our appreciation of these seminal comics.

Having said that, I have always found the verbal humour much less interesting, or as funny as the physical comedy. Many of Groucho’s famed one-liners and interjections added little to the chaos and often got in the way. 

But, again - having said that - every so often, he did hit the nail crunchingly on the head. If you don’t find “Is it true that you’re the widow of Wolf J. Flywheel? And is it true that he left you $50,000,000? Answer the second question first.” funny then well, you’d better watch the Marx Brothers for Harpo’s silent slapstick and those sudden moments of enjoyable, silly fun, such as Chico and Harpo playing a duet for children in ‘A night at the Opera.’

But I would have liked a broader canvas. Some background colour. Their origins in vaudeville were too briefly sketched and there was nothing about what happened to them post film. I shouldn’t have to resort to Google to find these things out. I like my documentaries to dot the eyes and cross the ts.

But ultimately, if you don’t like their humour, well, there are others.   

And that thoroughly mangled misquote from Groucho Marx concludes the reviews for this episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’

Don’t forget, contact me through the website Ireviewfreeview.com or email contact@ireviewfreeview.com.

And, also on IreviewFreeview.com, click on the page tagged ‘What’s up next.’ and see what programs I’ll be reviewing next time.

Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.