1.
The
Tube (BBC Two, Documentary)
Normally
I’m not a fan of ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentaries, but this one is particularly
good. It follows the weekly routine lives of the staff working on the London
Underground railway network, including on the areas we don’t get to see. The
documentary follows everyone from the cleaners and ticket sellers to security,
maintenance workmen and engineers, and gives us a snapshot of their everyday
duties as well as the obstacles and challenges they are called to face on a
near daily basis.
One
reason I quickly liked this programme was because it’s the first time, the
public have had a chance to fully see and understand how the London Underground
operates behind the scenes, and one of the few times for something as complex
and difficult to run as a railway network. We get to see just how much goes on,
and how difficult it must be to keep it running both regularly, and fairly
smoothly. It also effectively brings home how dedicated the staff of the
Underground has to be in order to cope.
That
brings me onto the main reason for liking the documentary, as it really
highlights the human side to the Underground, and the side that many of its
customers fail to appreciate. Most staff love their work, but even the ones who
aren’t so passionate, clearly time and time again put themselves on the line to
do their very best for the paying public, even when circumstances or problems
stop them from being able to help their potential or paying customers.
I’m
no Londoner, but as someone who has used the London Underground hundreds of
times over two decades, I know that a large majority of the railway’s users
take both it and the services of its staff for granted. However, what the documentary
brought scarily home to me is just how insular most Underground users are. They
seem to care only about their own needs, and often fail to recognise that there’s
often a very good reasonable cause for why problems or inconveniences occur. As
one railway replacement bus driver wisely commentated, Londoners are lucky to
be able to have regular public transport, often within minutes, late into the
night, when most of the country had little of it past the early evening. In
fact the London Underground is party to some of the worst excesses of human
life, at times straying dangerously close to barbarism. It’s probably not
appropriate to mention them here, but it is suffice to say that it is shocking
to see and hear, not just the lack of respect a person can have for another
human being, but also the lack of decency, morals or public consideration sometimes
on display. Fortunately, most Underground customers aren’t like this, but a lot
of them do seem to remain rather selfish, narcissistic, ignorant and
insensitive towards what happens on London Underground in general. In fact, I’ve
often seen some people like this on everyday British railways. Which is why I
hope this programme is a wake up call to all those who do take the service for
granted.
I
for one have a great respect for everything London Underground and workers do,
and have to go through in order to deliver the efficient service many of us
have enjoyed in recent times. Even if there just happens to a few temporarily-closed
lines on the next trip I make.
Rating: 5/5
2.
Whitechapel
– Series 3 (ITV 1, Crime Thriller)
.jpg)
I
was originally quite sceptical of Whitechapel being a success when I heard the
premise of the first series in 2009. Numerous Jack the Ripper dramas and films
set in the present day had been made, and nearly all of them weren’t very good.
While it was hardly a television classic, I was pleasantly surprised at just
how fun and enjoyable, not to mention how cinematically interesting it was to
watch. The cast of Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton were also
superlative.
The
second series in 2010 was sadly a big disappoint. A story and plot based upon a
pair of modern mafia twins, resurrecting the ways of the Kray twins, was both
ridiculously far-fetched and very convoluted, and I nearly didn’t bother to
watch the end.
This
entirely unexpected third series though, has proved to be something of a
delight. A simplification of the programme’s formula to feature modern day
crimes that are only similar to past ones, as opposed to being exactly
identical has given the show a wonderful new lease of life. The plot
construction and development may be rather predictable at times, but it’s I
would say it’s now more enjoyable and slicker than the programme has ever been.
The cast also remains superb and hold together the production nicely. Whitechapel
3 is a creepy, but disposable crime thriller that makes for a great evening’s
telly.
Rating: 4/5
3.
Top
Gear – Series 18 (BBC Two, Magazine Car Show)
I’m
no car enthusiast, I can assure you, but Top Gear has to be one of the most
entertaining shows of modern times. I may have a small interest in Transport in
general, but this is far from some serious factual show about people endlessly
obsessing about the details of cars. Of course, there has to be some of that,
otherwise it wouldn’t be a car show, but Top Gear is so well packaged a
programme that these parts almost fly by. In fact Top Gear is a magazine show,
which means it’s a programme of many parts, and many short features, but it
also means that any factual content has to be presented in an entertaining way.
Top Gear’s answer to this over the last ten years, has been to offer a variety
of fun car races, weird and wonderful challenges, and celebrity appearances,
all delivered in a gloriously irreverent style that makes it very appealing and
enjoyable to the majority, rather than the minority of automobile fanatics.
Series
18 in particular has seen a return to form for Top Gear, after the last couple
of years seemed to show the programme getting a bit tired in its offerings
(with the occasional memorable segment). Now that seems to be a thing of the
past, with moments like the Top Gear team's attempt at creating a movie car chase, a fun disability scooter
race, and a hilarious look at the history of the Chinese car industry.
Rating: 4/5
