James reviews Police Interceptors on Channel 5,Soldier, Soldier on Drama, Have I Got News for You on BBC1 and Naked Attraction on E4.

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

There is a short intro podcast, which you can listen to if you like. But really it’s straightforward: you suggest upcoming Freeview programs and I review them. If no-one suggests anything, then I have a look and choose something myself. 

Remember: send suggestions and comments to contact@ireviewfreeview.com or go to IReviewFreeview.com. 

And don’t forget, on IReviewFreeview.com, is the page ‘What’s up next’ where you can see what I’m intending to review in the next episode. The delight is such, words fail me!

In this episode, I will review: 

 Police Interceptors on Channel 5

Soldier, Soldier on Drama 

Have I Got News for You on BBC1 and

Naked Attraction on E4.

That’s a couple of series I’ve never thought to watch, a topical comical quiz that’s usually worth a laugh or two plus a guest appearance of a dating show I’ve been chasing for a while now. And in case you’re wondering why am I reviewing 4 programs instead of my usual 2 or 3, well, I’ve had a cold which affects my voice, making it low to the point of unintelligibly and fills up any spaces between words with wheezes, coughs and the occasional sneeze. Some genius with editing audio software might be able to tidy things up, but that ain’t me. But it does mean I’ve had a bit of extra time to write my reviews, so I thought I’d do a brief willie-stop tour of where the knobs hang out. 

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

A picture of a UK army beret and a police patrol car in front of the houses of parliament.

A somewhat unsatisfactory result. I tried several times to hint at nudity, but AI was having none of it. Somewhere, an algorithm has me marked for life. Also, I know the cap badge is probably wrong for ‘Soldier, Soldier’ but you can’t have it all.

So, here we go.

Police Interceptors on Channel 5, Thursday May 9, 6:00pm

I’ve always been somewhat queasy at the notion of police work being parcelled up and presented as entertainment. And this one, where our jolly traffic police officers go chasing after stolen cars at 90 mph through built-up areas, is the depressing reduction of real policing to a video game. When a new recruit joins the team, he’s asked what he’s looking forward to. He doesn’t say ‘a bacon sandwich’ like a sane person, but ‘a pursuit.’

Of course he does. He’s tried it on an X-Box, so why not go for the real thing. He’ll be hunting fugitives next.

Not that it’s all thumping music and screeching tyres: there’s a bus driver forgetting he’s driving a double-decker, or indeed that he should be heading back to the depot, and cheerfully decides to go home. Under a low bridge. Exit the top of the bus, unceremoniously dumped into the road like a rejected slide from a failed kid’s play area.

The policeman, after laconically noting they could save money by driving the bus further into the tunnel and out the other end (‘the sticky-up bits would just go bing bing bing on the girders’) asks the bus driver who is responsible, to which the morose reply is ‘I am, I suppose.’

And the fun doesn’t end there! There’s a young chap driving his Dad’s car causing hoots of laughter when he claims to be his elderly father! 

And there’s the case of ‘officer under attack’ or some such. Every policeman for miles around charges to the scene to find a man was trying to get into a house after being locked out by his wife. He was thumping on windows, she called the police, he tried to escape by climbing over a fence, slipped and cut his hand. When our officers turned up there was already a crowded garden’s worth of police, fluorescence vests a-glow, with the suspect holding his arm up in a nazi salute in an effort to stop the blood flow. Where do they get them, one doesn’t really ask, as you might as well question how did people get on this planet.

Of course, it’s quite exciting, urgently edited and comes with the constant background of pulsing music. Sometimes the police helicopter is bought into play, with infra-red images showing escaping criminals and the good guys running after them.

But how often do these high-speed pursuits really take place and, more importantly, how often do they need to take place? One can’t help thinking if it wasn’t for the cameras in the cab capturing every moment and the prospect of starring in a TV show, the cops would not be quite so gungho. But then there’s no exciting program to be made if - on spotting a stolen car - they just radioed ahead and pottered off down a side road. Surely, if the thieves think they’re safe, they’re not going to go at a zillion miles an hour, drawing attention to themselves? Joyriders might, but then, by chasing them, aren’t you effectively rewarding them? They’re out for thrills, and being chased by a cop car going nee-nah nee-nah would enrich their lives.

As the extraordinarily deflating, epitaph-like commentary says, this is West Yorkshire’s finest, ‘poised to pounce.’

Well, they can bugger off and pounce somewhere else. I’d prefer my streets quiet and safe, thanks very much.

Series record? Nope. Never.

So, moving swiftly on:

Soldier, Soldier on Drama, Thursday May 9, 11:20pm 

I was thinking, if I were editing the TV section of a newspaper, then what I would put as the headline for this review. I think it would be ‘Soldier, Soldier: a superior soap opera.’

For that’s what it is. Set in the close knit, mainly masculine world of an army regiment, it has all the soap opera elements: consistent characters and overlapping plots and relationships stretching over months.

On the rather flimsy evidence of watching just a couple of episodes, what it doesn’t appear to have is the old soap opera staple of people doing stupid stuff to help drive stupid plots along. 

I suspect - for each episode - there’s one central narrative which starts at the beginning and finishes at the end. Other stories circle around this one, slowly positioning themselves to come to the fore an episode or two down the line. That way, nothing suddenly appears out of mid-air. They’ve all got an organic - and believable - gestation period.

So anyway in this particular episode, the ironically titled ‘A man’s life’ the core group of squaddies - plus a couple of women - go to Wales for training in hard conditions. Rations are cut to a quarter and they all have to carry enormous rucksacks stuffed with gawd knows what.

Most of the squad go by rugged army lorry, while the chap in command, the padre and a couple of expendables get to ride in a rugged army helicopter. Well, not that rugged, as it crashes, killing one and injuring the others.

While this main plot is being gently cooked to sudden mayday mayday point, the lorry delivers the others to the base camp. One woman is the journalist girlfriend of the chap in charge (oh, do keep up: he’s currently in the helicopter, remember) while the other is an army lieutenant, an expert at rock climbing and other mainly manly pursuits. 

Which comes in useful because when news of the crash comes in, she slings on a backpack almost as big as she is and leads the team on an overland rescue mission. ‘Isn’t there a rescue helicopter?’ Someone asks. ‘No, it’s searching for lost children on the Yorkshire moors.’ comes the terse reply.

It’s all very dramatic. The helicopter is in bits and the crew have been attacked by make up artists sensing this is their day to shine. The rev in particular has a convincing contusion on this forehead while the chap in charge (who’s GF is at the base camp bravely not having kittens, remember) has a whole face full of cuts and abrasions, plus a strapped up side and an arm in an improvised sling.

They manage to get a fire going and wrap up the other two members of the crew in space blankets, for all the world like giant sausages ready for the BBQ.

Meantime super woman’s rescue squad has reached a split in the path. Up and over a dangerous climb or the longer safer route. She cheerfully opts for the climb with her not so cheerful sergeant and dispatches the rest of the party to take the slow way. We don’t see them again as she and the sergeant, on grunting their way to the top, see the crash site.

The padre opts to stay with the dead body while the others stretcher the remaining only just alive survivor to a pickup clearing. I have to admit, I was hoping, after a long dark night of the soul guarding a cadaver (from what? Wolves? In Wales?) the rev would lose his faith, start hallucinating and shoot a squirrel or two, but no such luck. He turns up in the hospital later waving a bottle of Scotch.

All good stuff! A competent drama, well constructed, believably scripted and decently acted.

Series record? You bet.

And swiftly on:   

Have I Got News for You on BBC1, Friday May 10, 9:00pm

I looked it up. The first episode of ‘Have I got News For you’ was broadcast in 1990. 1990! That’s 34 years ago. Not bad for a direct rip off of the Radio 4 panel show ‘the news quiz.’ Which, by the way, is also still going strong.

Obviously, the format is as enduring as an alligator. 

This week, the rotating chair of hosts securely held the buttocks of Bill Bailey, a very experienced and witty performer. He adroitly guided the two teams through the recent local elections, instigated a running joke about Putin walking along corridors, made fun of the trump trial (who would have guessed a prosecution called ‘the Stormy Daniels hush money case’ would feature Stormy Daniels?) and into the safer waters of the odd one out round, where Daniel Defoe was correctly identified as the odd one out, having added something (the ‘De’ to his born surname of ‘foe’) whereas all the other left things out.

I’ve watched it right from the earliest episodes, when Ian Hislop looked young, Paul Merton had a shock of dark hair and Angus Deayton was pouring sarcastic verbal acid joyfully over everyone and everything.

In my mind, ‘have I got news for you’ - then - had more bite. But memory is a fickle, uncertain beast, with the disconcerting habit of forgetting what it is you’re trying to remember. A bit like a feeble octopus wrestling a burnt tomato. So I watched a recording from 1994, when Bob Monkhouse was a guest. 

And I’d say yes, it’s true: 30 years ago, there was more bite. More sailing close to the wind. More willingness to say what everyone thinks - however unpalatable it is - to those (supposedly) in power.

Anyway, the thought of Bob Monkhouse led me to remember reading that he astonished everyone by bringing along his gag writer to the preview the panellists have of the questions that are going to be asked.

So I asked both my usual AI chatbots if that happened.

One cheerfully said yes! Indeed Bob Monkhouse did bring along his gag writer to the preview of the questions!

While the other snootily informed me there was no preview of the questions and implied it was close to treasonous to suggest there was.

Here’s a thought: there ought to be a virtual AI chatbot arena, where such contentious questions can be fought over using whatever weapons AI can produce.

Now that would be interesting, although perhaps not if humanity was destroyed by accident.

Anyway, back in the here and now, Bill Bailey is wrapping things up with the missing words round, which leads to jokes about tight underpants, a ten foot willie and donald trump’s wig. A final dig at Putin and that’s it. Roll credits, that’s a wrap. 

(ha!)And they say satire isn’t dead.

Naked Attraction on E4, Friday May 10, 11:07 pm

Oh, I dunno what to write here. This is so far from my safe areas of cucumber sandwiches, tea on the vicarage lawn, violent death behind the bike shed and dinosaurs eating buildings, I am bereft of words. 

If you like willies, bums, bazoomas and skin with bumps, blemishes, the occasional piercing and the not so occasional tattoo, this is possibly the show for you.

Or maybe you can see past all the skin on display and appreciate the very real human beings beneath it all. If so, well done.

I can’t. I sit here in my little grandpa annex dumbfounded by A: how did this series ever got past the drunken, schoolboy drawing board stage, and B: who are these people?

Who wants to stand with all their bits and pieces on display, in a colour coded box, while a couple of women wander round commenting on the size of your knob, all for the edification of any hotdogless TV watcher? I mean, your granny might have tuned in. Or members of your bowling club. Is it advertising, showing off, or simply an attitude of ‘why the hell not’ taken to the nth degree? 

I don’t know and I don’t care. I got to half time, but when it was announced the same again was going to happen after the commercials - presumably for an organ enhancing breakfast cereal called big balls - I reached for the off-knob and opted out.

After all, when all’s said and done, wobbly bits cease wobbling when the lights are out.

And that misquote from Robert Helpmann 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.