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April 19, 2024
James reviews 'The Mist,' 'Dr. Pimple Popper' and 'Dinosaur'
James finds 'Dinosaur' brilliant, 'The Mist' rubbish and 'Dr. Pimple Popper' so-so.
The image for this episode was generated with the prompt:
'a stark painting of a dinosaur covered in very very large zits in a heavy fog.'
James finds 'Dinosaur' brilliant, 'The Mist' rubbish and 'Dr. Pimple Popper' so-so.
The image for this episode was generated with the prompt:
'a stark painting of a dinosaur covered in very very large zits in a heavy fog.'
Transcript
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Hello, I’m James Brook, and welcome to the twelfth episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’
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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.
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Remember: send suggestions and comments to contact@ireviewfreeview.com or go to IReviewFreeview.com.
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In this episode, I will review:
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‘The Mist’ on Film4.
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‘Dr. Pimple Popper’ on Really, and
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‘Dinosaur’ on BBC3.
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So that’s a horror movie, a medical program that is likely to make me go ‘Urrggg!’ and I haven’t even read the blurb for ‘Dinosaur’ but I doubt it’s going to star a T-rex.
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By the way, the image for this episode was generated by a free AI image generator with the prompt:
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a stark painting of a dinosaur covered in very very large zits in a heavy fog.
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So, here we go.
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The Mist on Film4. Monday April 15th, 9:00pm
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Well, I dunno. ‘The Mist’ is based on a story by Stephen King. He’s one of my favourite, favourite writers: a superb craftsman of the written word, making the construction of sentences, paragraphs and chapters into page-turning stories completely effortless seeming and easy.
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Every so often, I try to write like him, and knock off a short story or two, maybe a complete novel. But I can’t do it. I lack his elegant mastery of what needs to be written, and - more fundamentally - what needs to be left out. In truth, I usually give up after a few pages and sit there thinking, how does he do it?
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Many of his books - ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ or ‘Misery’ - for example, have been made into excellent, successful films. Unfortunately, ‘The Mist’ is not one of them. It’s derivative and hackneyed, telegraphing the shocks and horrors like an aging drunk taking a slow motion swipe at a lamp-post.
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It starts with hunky he-man David down in the basement of his lakeside house trying to finish an artistic commission. A violent storm whips up, flattening trees and taking out the power. There’s also a mysterious looking mist on the lake.
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Leaving his wife behind to sweep up broken glass, David and his young son go into town for supplies. They’re loading a trolley in the food store when a man with wide eyes and a bleeding nose runs in saying the mist is coming, and inside it are things that kill people.
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Understandably, everyone panics and the doors are shut and bolted. The mist swirls and becomes thicker: the outside is reduced to a grey, alien world.
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Yep, it’s the old ‘people on a boat in shark-infested waters’ plot, with the waters replaced by the grey mist and the sharks with not particularly convincing CGI monsters.
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Toby Jones pops up as ‘small unregarded man makes good’, but even his considerable acting chops are lost among the swirling inanity of horror/monster movie cliches. You can tick them off with your fingers:
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We have not one but two tense retrievals of half a body, once with a missing bottom half and then again, with a missing top half.
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An increasingly lunatic religious nut saying things like ‘the end is nigh!’ and ‘we must feed the beast!’
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A lot of hunky heroics from handsome he-man David.
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A young, winsome boy in danger.
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Jump-scares when alien monsters slam themselves against plate glass windows.
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Lots of not well scripted shouted arguments as fear grips and tempers fray.
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Cocooned people, still alive, being eaten from the inside out by vicious baby spiders.
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I expect the producer said, to the CGI guy, go on, give me some monsters: I can fit them in somewhere.
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Oh, I could go on, but why bother. Even the basic structure defies surprise. It’s a predictable progression of alternate CGI monster action and increasingly tense, fraying group reaction.
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I was waiting for a quiet scientist wearing glasses to reveal him or her self and say something like ‘have you noticed how they don’t like salt? We can get out of here!’
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So they sprinkle themselves with salt and set off. Tense moments as they creep between the monsters. They’re nearly out when it rains, the salt dissolves and the monsters attack. Someone - probably the religious nut - is dismembered while making sure the boy is safe.
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But, to its credit, ‘The Mist’ doesn’t go down that path, although in many regards, it probably would have been better had it done so. At least then we’d know it never aspired to be anything more than a C or D class horror movie heading straight to an obscure TV channel at 4:00 am.
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Instead, Hunky Hero David and assorted good guys (Including - of course - the young boy) escape and drive off in his 4*4, usefully adorned with a whole array of spotlights.
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They drive slowly through the mist, the beams of light illuminating crashed cars, downed power lines, half eaten corpses and the misty outlines of monsters various.
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Possibly they wanted this to be symbolic of something or other? Mankind’s journey into the unknown perhaps?
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They run out of fuel, and as the monsters approach, they find there’s five people in the car, but only four bullets.
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Now there’s a bummer: what can they do?
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Ha! Well, on the off-chance you’re interested enough to watch the whole thing (best with zapper poised if you ask me) I’m not going to tell you. It’ll be on line somewhere: you can look it up.
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So, leaving this disappointing sub-par mess behind and moving swiftly on:
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Dr. Pimple Popper(S 9 Ep 19: Quadripple Nipple) on Really, Tuesday April 16th, 9:00pm
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This is a curious amalgam of sob story, that old Channel 4 one testicle standby, ‘Embarrassing bodies’ and ‘Homes under the Hammer.’
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Now I doubt anyone called their baby ‘Pimple’. And in fact Dr Pimple herself is a TVgenic lady called Lee. She has the air of having seen it all before and the sort of calm, reassuring, knowledgeable presence you want all doctors to have. Within 5 minutes I’m wishing she was my GP.
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She works in a skin clinic in the USA and - on TV - deals with just a few cases per hour-long program.
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Which comes out - once you factor in commercials and the wrap up, somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes per case, each of which are presented in the same manner: sob story, doctor’s assessment, treatment.
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First up in this episode is Don, who suffers from severe - very severe - psoriasis.
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Most of his body is so badly afflicted he resembles a man who’s been dipped in mud then microwaved.
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Immediately, all jokey terms like ‘sob story’ become inappropriate, and I feel like apologising. Sorry Don.
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He scratches at the caked on dead skin, revealing sores beneath. He cries while doing this. He even attacks his toes with a small electric sander. ‘I’ve got the tools,’ he laments, ‘I used to be a plumber.’ He also has arthritis, a common complaint for people in his condition. He walks with a zimmer frame and will soon be in a wheelchair.
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His partner turns up with what looks like a nutmeg grater and attacks his other foot. We are shown snapshots of when they first met, a smiley, outdoors couple enjoying life.
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Such activities are impossible now. He hasn’t even seen his grandkids for months. He’s been seen by 4 specialist doctors - dermatologists - but nothing seems to work long term.
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Sob story? I really do take it back.
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He sees Dr Pimple, who is unfazed and says it can take a while to find the right treatment as it varies from condition to condition and patient to patient.
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She prescribes yet another medicine.
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Next up is Jeff, with a lump the size of a large grapefruit - or even a small melon - high on his back. We see him wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt while working out. He’s hardly the lunchbox of Notre-Dame, but it is unsightly. Jeff wants to get back on the dating scene, but is too self-conscious to do so.
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He’s large, muscular, worried about surgical side effects and scared of needles.
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Dr Pimple pushes the lump around. ‘Moves easily’ she says ‘that’s a good sign.’
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Jeff succumbs to her bedside manner and agrees she can operate. He lies on the operating table, on his side. Behind his back, so he can’t see, she prepares a needle. ‘No needles!’ he cries. Dr Pimple swabs the area, says she’s just going to make it numb and slips the needle in. Jeff doesn’t protest.
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The lump is slit open and she rootles around with her gloved fingers, hoicking out gumball sized white lumps encased in a thin sausage skin. These are carefully put into a glass jar for Jeff to look at. We are not told if he takes them home to put on his mantle-piece. But somehow, I doubt it.
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He’s stitched up and told to wait a week or two to allow it to settle down.
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And lastly there’s the heavily tattooed Sarah, who has a couple of extra breasts growing next to her armpits. They’re very small and not well defined, but tend to squidge out if she wears a skimpy top.
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She’s ruled out liposuction, but when Dr. Pimple suggests it, she’s soon on the operating table.
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The doc liposucks away as if hoovering breadcrumbs from a grocery bag and removes the nipples with a couple of neat cuts and a well-practiced hoick and snip.
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Time for commercials and onto the ‘homes under the hammer’ wrap up, with lingering before and after shots as if they’d all had new kitchens installed.
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Don has progressed to a wheelchair, but his psoriasis is definitely better. I think every watcher echoes him when he says ‘Thank you doctor.’
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Jeff’s lump is now hardly noticeable, he’s got a spring to his step and he’s dating again. ‘Thank you doctor’ he says.
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Sarah’s extra breasts, with nipples, have all but vanished. She goes to the gym in a skimpy top and poses in front of a mirror. ‘I feel sexy again’ she says, ‘Thank you doctor.’
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The credits roll, and that’s a wrap.
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I’ve been thinking why these programs are enduringly popular. To me there’s a powerful element of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ mixed in with medical voyeurism lightly dusted with the scatological.
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I suppose a more interesting question is why people with these conditions seem happy to parade them for a TV program, but I strongly suspect I’m the only one wondering this. I’m not a child of the TV age, and I dislike exposing my crinkly wrinkly flabby bits to myself, let alone to potentially millions of viewers on TV. What if the girl on the Lidl’s checkout gave me a knowing up-and-down look? I’d have to get muffins somewhere else, but nowhere would feel safe anymore.
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Well, it is the USA, so I hope they got the treatments for free.
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And now, to finish:
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Dinosaur (S 1 Ep 1) on BBC3, Tuesday April 16th, 9:00pm
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I didn’t think this would be the story of a lonely T-Rex looking for a marshmallow, and I was right.
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It’s about two Scottish sisters, Nina: brainy and autistic, and impulsive Evie, with red hair. Not only sisters but best friends, they talk very quickly: blink for a second and that’s 10 words down the drain. But once the old brain turns on the afterburners and gets puffing up to speed, most of it becomes clear.
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I don’t know exactly where it sits in the comedic night sky: possibly in the ‘Fleabag’ constellation, but with the big difference ‘Dinosaur’ shines brighter and is actually funny.
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Everything is seen through a tilted lens, with all the characters - major and minor - being consistently off-centre, only saved from being caricatures because ‘normal’ people are at such a premium there’s little to compare them to.
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It quickly becomes clear Nina is the dinosaur. Not only does she work in a museum stuffed with dead ones, she’s set in her routines and rituals, and stomps around like a two legged carthorse, spreading zingers with without fear or favour. When - Evie tells her she’s got engaged after only 6 weeks, Nina says, with careless venom: ‘6 weeks?! You’ve had thrush for longer.’
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This bombshell engagement announcement exposes the knobbly spine of the series: Nina’s slow, vulnerable, reluctant, loving, grudging acceptance that things will change. That life goes on and she has to catch up - or at least not stay concreted in a rapidly disappearing world.
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It’s well cast and beautifully acted. When Nina’s brother says - on hearing of the engagement - ‘what did you think? That you and Evie would become two old ladies in a flat together?’ her expression hardly changes, but you know that’s exactly what she expected.
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To her consternation, there’s a new man in the coffee cart: young, glasses, slightly nerdy, always trying too hard.
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He and Nina make an unlikely connection.
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On the evidence of the first two episodes (yep, I enjoyed it so much I actually watched episode 2) this series could have been called something to indicate how Nina manages to force herself out of her rut. ‘Dinothaws’ maybe. I just made that up, and thought I’d throw it out there.
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So, in answer to the unasked question: yes, I certainly have put it on series record.
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And that unusually high recommendation concludes the reviews in this episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’
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Don’t forget, contact me through the website Ireviewfreeview.com or email contact@ireviewfreeview.com.
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Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.
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Hello, I’m James Brook, and welcome to the twelfth episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’
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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.
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Remember: send suggestions and comments to contact@ireviewfreeview.com or go to IReviewFreeview.com.
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In this episode, I will review:
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‘The Mist’ on Film4.
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‘Dr. Pimple Popper’ on Really, and
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‘Dinosaur’ on BBC3.
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So that’s a horror movie, a medical program that is likely to make me go ‘Urrggg!’ and I haven’t even read the blurb for ‘Dinosaur’ but I doubt it’s going to star a T-rex.
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By the way, the image for this episode was generated by a free AI image generator with the prompt:
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a stark painting of a dinosaur covered in very very large zits in a heavy fog.
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So, here we go.
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The Mist on Film4. Monday April 15th, 9:00pm
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Well, I dunno. ‘The Mist’ is based on a story by Stephen King. He’s one of my favourite, favourite writers: a superb craftsman of the written word, making the construction of sentences, paragraphs and chapters into page-turning stories completely effortless seeming and easy.
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Every so often, I try to write like him, and knock off a short story or two, maybe a complete novel. But I can’t do it. I lack his elegant mastery of what needs to be written, and - more fundamentally - what needs to be left out. In truth, I usually give up after a few pages and sit there thinking, how does he do it?
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Many of his books - ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ or ‘Misery’ - for example, have been made into excellent, successful films. Unfortunately, ‘The Mist’ is not one of them. It’s derivative and hackneyed, telegraphing the shocks and horrors like an aging drunk taking a slow motion swipe at a lamp-post.
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It starts with hunky he-man David down in the basement of his lakeside house trying to finish an artistic commission. A violent storm whips up, flattening trees and taking out the power. There’s also a mysterious looking mist on the lake.
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Leaving his wife behind to sweep up broken glass, David and his young son go into town for supplies. They’re loading a trolley in the food store when a man with wide eyes and a bleeding nose runs in saying the mist is coming, and inside it are things that kill people.
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Understandably, everyone panics and the doors are shut and bolted. The mist swirls and becomes thicker: the outside is reduced to a grey, alien world.
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Yep, it’s the old ‘people on a boat in shark-infested waters’ plot, with the waters replaced by the grey mist and the sharks with not particularly convincing CGI monsters.
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Toby Jones pops up as ‘small unregarded man makes good’, but even his considerable acting chops are lost among the swirling inanity of horror/monster movie cliches. You can tick them off with your fingers:
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We have not one but two tense retrievals of half a body, once with a missing bottom half and then again, with a missing top half.
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An increasingly lunatic religious nut saying things like ‘the end is nigh!’ and ‘we must feed the beast!’
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A lot of hunky heroics from handsome he-man David.
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A young, winsome boy in danger.
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Jump-scares when alien monsters slam themselves against plate glass windows.
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Lots of not well scripted shouted arguments as fear grips and tempers fray.
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Cocooned people, still alive, being eaten from the inside out by vicious baby spiders.
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I expect the producer said, to the CGI guy, go on, give me some monsters: I can fit them in somewhere.
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Oh, I could go on, but why bother. Even the basic structure defies surprise. It’s a predictable progression of alternate CGI monster action and increasingly tense, fraying group reaction.
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I was waiting for a quiet scientist wearing glasses to reveal him or her self and say something like ‘have you noticed how they don’t like salt? We can get out of here!’
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So they sprinkle themselves with salt and set off. Tense moments as they creep between the monsters. They’re nearly out when it rains, the salt dissolves and the monsters attack. Someone - probably the religious nut - is dismembered while making sure the boy is safe.
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But, to its credit, ‘The Mist’ doesn’t go down that path, although in many regards, it probably would have been better had it done so. At least then we’d know it never aspired to be anything more than a C or D class horror movie heading straight to an obscure TV channel at 4:00 am.
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Instead, Hunky Hero David and assorted good guys (Including - of course - the young boy) escape and drive off in his 4*4, usefully adorned with a whole array of spotlights.
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They drive slowly through the mist, the beams of light illuminating crashed cars, downed power lines, half eaten corpses and the misty outlines of monsters various.
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Possibly they wanted this to be symbolic of something or other? Mankind’s journey into the unknown perhaps?
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They run out of fuel, and as the monsters approach, they find there’s five people in the car, but only four bullets.
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Now there’s a bummer: what can they do?
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Ha! Well, on the off-chance you’re interested enough to watch the whole thing (best with zapper poised if you ask me) I’m not going to tell you. It’ll be on line somewhere: you can look it up.
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So, leaving this disappointing sub-par mess behind and moving swiftly on:
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Dr. Pimple Popper(S 9 Ep 19: Quadripple Nipple) on Really, Tuesday April 16th, 9:00pm
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This is a curious amalgam of sob story, that old Channel 4 one testicle standby, ‘Embarrassing bodies’ and ‘Homes under the Hammer.’
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Now I doubt anyone called their baby ‘Pimple’. And in fact Dr Pimple herself is a TVgenic lady called Lee. She has the air of having seen it all before and the sort of calm, reassuring, knowledgeable presence you want all doctors to have. Within 5 minutes I’m wishing she was my GP.
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She works in a skin clinic in the USA and - on TV - deals with just a few cases per hour-long program.
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Which comes out - once you factor in commercials and the wrap up, somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes per case, each of which are presented in the same manner: sob story, doctor’s assessment, treatment.
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First up in this episode is Don, who suffers from severe - very severe - psoriasis.
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Most of his body is so badly afflicted he resembles a man who’s been dipped in mud then microwaved.
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Immediately, all jokey terms like ‘sob story’ become inappropriate, and I feel like apologising. Sorry Don.
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He scratches at the caked on dead skin, revealing sores beneath. He cries while doing this. He even attacks his toes with a small electric sander. ‘I’ve got the tools,’ he laments, ‘I used to be a plumber.’ He also has arthritis, a common complaint for people in his condition. He walks with a zimmer frame and will soon be in a wheelchair.
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His partner turns up with what looks like a nutmeg grater and attacks his other foot. We are shown snapshots of when they first met, a smiley, outdoors couple enjoying life.
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Such activities are impossible now. He hasn’t even seen his grandkids for months. He’s been seen by 4 specialist doctors - dermatologists - but nothing seems to work long term.
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Sob story? I really do take it back.
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He sees Dr Pimple, who is unfazed and says it can take a while to find the right treatment as it varies from condition to condition and patient to patient.
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She prescribes yet another medicine.
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Next up is Jeff, with a lump the size of a large grapefruit - or even a small melon - high on his back. We see him wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt while working out. He’s hardly the lunchbox of Notre-Dame, but it is unsightly. Jeff wants to get back on the dating scene, but is too self-conscious to do so.
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He’s large, muscular, worried about surgical side effects and scared of needles.
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Dr Pimple pushes the lump around. ‘Moves easily’ she says ‘that’s a good sign.’
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Jeff succumbs to her bedside manner and agrees she can operate. He lies on the operating table, on his side. Behind his back, so he can’t see, she prepares a needle. ‘No needles!’ he cries. Dr Pimple swabs the area, says she’s just going to make it numb and slips the needle in. Jeff doesn’t protest.
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The lump is slit open and she rootles around with her gloved fingers, hoicking out gumball sized white lumps encased in a thin sausage skin. These are carefully put into a glass jar for Jeff to look at. We are not told if he takes them home to put on his mantle-piece. But somehow, I doubt it.
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He’s stitched up and told to wait a week or two to allow it to settle down.
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And lastly there’s the heavily tattooed Sarah, who has a couple of extra breasts growing next to her armpits. They’re very small and not well defined, but tend to squidge out if she wears a skimpy top.
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She’s ruled out liposuction, but when Dr. Pimple suggests it, she’s soon on the operating table.
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The doc liposucks away as if hoovering breadcrumbs from a grocery bag and removes the nipples with a couple of neat cuts and a well-practiced hoick and snip.
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Time for commercials and onto the ‘homes under the hammer’ wrap up, with lingering before and after shots as if they’d all had new kitchens installed.
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Don has progressed to a wheelchair, but his psoriasis is definitely better. I think every watcher echoes him when he says ‘Thank you doctor.’
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Jeff’s lump is now hardly noticeable, he’s got a spring to his step and he’s dating again. ‘Thank you doctor’ he says.
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Sarah’s extra breasts, with nipples, have all but vanished. She goes to the gym in a skimpy top and poses in front of a mirror. ‘I feel sexy again’ she says, ‘Thank you doctor.’
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The credits roll, and that’s a wrap.
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I’ve been thinking why these programs are enduringly popular. To me there’s a powerful element of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ mixed in with medical voyeurism lightly dusted with the scatological.
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I suppose a more interesting question is why people with these conditions seem happy to parade them for a TV program, but I strongly suspect I’m the only one wondering this. I’m not a child of the TV age, and I dislike exposing my crinkly wrinkly flabby bits to myself, let alone to potentially millions of viewers on TV. What if the girl on the Lidl’s checkout gave me a knowing up-and-down look? I’d have to get muffins somewhere else, but nowhere would feel safe anymore.
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Well, it is the USA, so I hope they got the treatments for free.
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And now, to finish:
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Dinosaur (S 1 Ep 1) on BBC3, Tuesday April 16th, 9:00pm
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I didn’t think this would be the story of a lonely T-Rex looking for a marshmallow, and I was right.
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It’s about two Scottish sisters, Nina: brainy and autistic, and impulsive Evie, with red hair. Not only sisters but best friends, they talk very quickly: blink for a second and that’s 10 words down the drain. But once the old brain turns on the afterburners and gets puffing up to speed, most of it becomes clear.
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I don’t know exactly where it sits in the comedic night sky: possibly in the ‘Fleabag’ constellation, but with the big difference ‘Dinosaur’ shines brighter and is actually funny.
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Everything is seen through a tilted lens, with all the characters - major and minor - being consistently off-centre, only saved from being caricatures because ‘normal’ people are at such a premium there’s little to compare them to.
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It quickly becomes clear Nina is the dinosaur. Not only does she work in a museum stuffed with dead ones, she’s set in her routines and rituals, and stomps around like a two legged carthorse, spreading zingers with without fear or favour. When - Evie tells her she’s got engaged after only 6 weeks, Nina says, with careless venom: ‘6 weeks?! You’ve had thrush for longer.’
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This bombshell engagement announcement exposes the knobbly spine of the series: Nina’s slow, vulnerable, reluctant, loving, grudging acceptance that things will change. That life goes on and she has to catch up - or at least not stay concreted in a rapidly disappearing world.
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It’s well cast and beautifully acted. When Nina’s brother says - on hearing of the engagement - ‘what did you think? That you and Evie would become two old ladies in a flat together?’ her expression hardly changes, but you know that’s exactly what she expected.
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To her consternation, there’s a new man in the coffee cart: young, glasses, slightly nerdy, always trying too hard.
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He and Nina make an unlikely connection.
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On the evidence of the first two episodes (yep, I enjoyed it so much I actually watched episode 2) this series could have been called something to indicate how Nina manages to force herself out of her rut. ‘Dinothaws’ maybe. I just made that up, and thought I’d throw it out there.
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So, in answer to the unasked question: yes, I certainly have put it on series record.
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And that unusually high recommendation concludes the reviews in this episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’
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Don’t forget, contact me through the website Ireviewfreeview.com or email contact@ireviewfreeview.com.
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Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.