Strange Phenomena

It's become depressingly clear that needy, high maintenance Chris Hollins will win Strictly and 'simpering blowjob smile'* Joe will win X-Factor. Proof that you can never be too pathetic for reality TV. Chris just strikes me as a nightmare, the kind of man who would be suffocating to go out with. He'd always be texting or phoning to guilt-trip you into dropping your friends so you could spend all your time with him to distract him from that void of insecurity he projects around himself. And Cheryl Cole's tedious one-trick 'oooh he's like mah little brootha ah loove 'im' bullshit routine about dull Joe has really run its course now. He's like a boring John Barrowman.

Most extraordinary performance of the week didn't come from either of them, it came from Dev on Corrie, whose scat-singing/human beatbox rendition of 'Save All Your Kisses For Me' by the Brotherhood of Man (as some kind of bizarre way to celebrate winning a round of golf) was 1 part Cleo Laine, 1 part Falco and absolutely no parts sane. This TV Burp clip from years back illustrates my point:



How other actors are supposed to continue performing in a naturalistic soap style when he's off freestyling like that is a total mystery. In fact, how he ever ended up as a soap actor is a mystery. The only possible explanation is he's a stray from Twin Peaks.

* (c) Bertie Fox

Anti-Kipper Ballistic Missile

During Corrie this evening imagine my delight to see one of my favourite ads ever unexpectedly repeated. Tommy Cooper + Lego = all time classic.

The Price of Fame

Katie Price,
Katie Price,
Couldn't win a bowl of rice.
Those Aussie bugs just are not nice.
Shouldn't have gone in there twice,
Katie Price.

(Traditional)

Jordan: the Comedown

The twins have gone. Now Katie Price has gone, as her desire to get herself back into the good books of the British people has ended with them and her 'doing a Natalie Appleton' – us forcing her to undergo every task in a manner that could be construed as bullying if that wasn't the actual point of the show in the first place, and she flouncing out as she was about to embark on yet another Bushtucker Trial.

Her stated reason for going on the show in the first place - to achieve closure from her relationship with Peter Andre - was a bit like a serial killer claiming that they killed again to get over the trauma of the last one.

I have no idea why anyone would go on I'm a Celebrity... once let alone twice. It's the cruelest of these celebrity shows. In fact, having just seen Gladiator for the first time it is uncannily similar in terms of gruesomeness. It's not fun to watch, it just isn't. The trials are the most horrible things on TV, worse even than being stuck in a green room with the presenters of Top Gear. I couldn't ever put a giant spider in my mouth, for example. Why would people go on there to face that? Yet Sam Fox is coming out of this series beautifully. She's willing to muck in, is funny and pragmatic and deserves to win. And it's interesting to see a glamour model from a different age next to Jordan. It's like Terminator 2. This new, high-tech merciless version has suddenly made the original seem so much more human. Actually she's the T2 crossed with Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons. Or something.

Meanwhile ITV execs hold their heads in their hands, within 12 hours their most hyped reality stars have all gone. And on the BBC my favourite Strictly contestant, Jade, has pulled out through injury. IT'S A SAD WAY FOR REALITY TV TO LIMP OFF THE END OF THE DECADE, that's all I can say.

It's a Steve Brookstein year alright

Ta-ta Jedward. See you on Hole in the Wall, I'm a Celebrity, Celebrity Family Fortunes and the rest forever and ever. Just not in the charts. It's Cheeky Girls time, not JLS.

Everyone I know seems to love Olly Murs, a man who looks like a chubby Matt Damon. Fatt Damon. And dances like Prince Charles did in that awful clip of him doing the Hot Stuff dance from The Full Monty. I guess he can't win now, as he's been in the bottom two, so that's a relief. But that really only leaves Stacey and Joe as the only plausible winners. Joe will be off in Joseph before the series has even ended, and Stacey will be working the cruise ships for the next sixty years. There's no Leona here, no Alexandra Burke. I bet Simon was willing the twins to win, even over his own singer, because that was money lies. The rest won't trouble the top 20 this time next year.

Dannii was left to kill the twins. She asked the other judges whether this was a singing competition A fair point. None of them are good enough for this to be a proper singing competition, that much was obvious when Susan Boyle came on and sang quite divinely, her vulnerability making the song almost embarrassingly touching, and her voice filling that stage without any of the strained flip-top head yelling of Danyl or backing overkill of Jedward. So, if it can't be a singing competition proper, what are they actually judging? Simon can't answer, because that level of honestly would dismantle the entire show and with it his precarious, ludicrous parasitic career.

Piers Pressure

It's not a particularly original observation to point out what a revolting pissbrain Piers Morgan is, the man who was sacked for publishing faked army abuse photos in the Mirror and who has somehow kept his gollum-like talons on the throat of showbiz through various talent shows and now a chat show where he pedals a tabloid-inspired agenda to his guests.

Yet last week his interview with Ronnie Corbett, one of my all-time favourite comedians, was a new low even by Morgan's standards. He spent a whole 15 minute section on one point: Corbett never says 'I love to' to his wife, and instead they display their affection through actions not words. It's clearly a very personal and special way of communicating, and it's not for the outside world to get involved in this private aspect of his life. However, Piers, being the cheap sentimental hack he is, asked the same questions over and over about it, and then demanded that Ronnie say 'I love you' on camera to his wife for the sake of his viewing figures. Ronnie was understandably reluctant - this was a private thing, this wasn't how they communicated, and it's not what he does. Still, Morgan wouldn't take no for an answer and in the end Ronnie gave up and told his wife he loved her, and promptly wept.

Morgan got exactly what he wanted, the money shot, through cajoling his guest into submission. It was interesting to watch – for much of the media this is how journalism works. But it's usually a hidden process. The journalist can recount the events without revealing the manipulative lengths they went to make their interviewee lose it in some way. Watching Piers do this in front of the cameras was revolting. The man has no shame, and no respect for his guests, just an eye for the mechanics of a popular story no matter the cost, and the tricks to make an unwary elderly performer break down in front of the camera for nothing more than a cheap thrill.

The Crying Game

The X-Factor isn't really my cup of tea. I'm more of a Strictly man, mainly because SCD reminds me of celebs lumping around the Morecambe and Wise set and XF has all of the amateur charmlessness of Opportunity Knocks. I hate 'human interest' – I don't want to see 17 year olds weeping because Simon Cowell has said they aren't Celine Dion.

This series of XF is a two horse race (and I'm not talking about creepy John and Edward, and their incest-tastic version of Britney's Oops, I Did It Again) - Jamie, the cute guy with the highly rufflable afro and super-flexible voice, and Stacie, who is Catherine Tate doing an exaggerated impression of Peggy from Hi-De-Hi! when she talks, and is Jennifer Rush when she sings. The others are a bunch of feeble-voiced twits we have to slowly eliminate week on week, and patiently sit through them butchering Sinatra and ABBA. Poor Rachel, in the sing-off for the last two weeks isn't the weakest singer by any stretch, but she looks odd. uncomfortable up there – last week dressed as post-assault Rhianna, this week as Denise from Five Star.

It has completely put me off Cheryl Cole. Last series made her career as the woman that middle-class ladies the country over could claim was their 'girl crush' (a fucking annoying sentiment that inevitably leads to the let's-treat-gays-as-exotic-tourism of Katy Perry's truly appalling I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It). This series has undone it at a stroke. The papers might be out for Minogue after her Danyl that-came-out-wrong moment, but Cole's waterworks have been as tedious and stage-managed as Brendan Cole's insincere attempt at indignation on Strictly for his ancing partner Jo Wood being rightly criticised as shit.

Last week Robbie shouted his way through his new single and did his Freddie Starr dance. This week the newly-scary Whitney spent most of her song doing her dress back up and not singing. I've not properly adjusted from seeing her as the dull Cliff Richard of R&B, but these days she looks like a woman who could do anything, apart from behave well...

Forget Mexican Swine Flu...

I definitely don't want what they had in Primeval last night. In an episode reminiscent of The Silurians, one of the very best Jon Pertwee Doctor Who stories, a prehistoric fungus spreads through London creating panic. Even the famous railway station scene, that disaster-movie classic setting, is recreated at beautiful St Pancras.

I particularly liked the stupid personification of the fungi as a Marvel Comics-type Thing. If I have one criticism of the revived Doctor Who it has been the relative lack of traditional monster fare. I want more exploding fungal bogey-men on telly. Preferably during Loose Women.

With those scary stories of swine flu all over the media, this episode was oddly more topical than a cheeseball teatime sci-fi show about dinosaurs probably should be. But then I'm easily carried away. I remember after I saw Shaun of the Dead I caught sight of my eyes, red with conjunctivitis, and went to bed thinking there were zombies banging at the window all night.

Tyrannosaurus rocks

My word. After the dog's dinner of last week, Primeval was fantastic this Saturday. The crazy conspiracy stuff finally worked, the loss of poor old Cutter wasn't felt at all, sexy Jason Flemyng (be still my raging hormones) made his comeback, and they had their Best Dinosaur Ever - a bloody beautifully realised T-Rex - rampaging all round an airport and eating stupid journos. Yay! They even gave a point to Ben Miller's character for once.

This dedicated fan of schlocky telly sci-fi has given Primeval three series of last chances, and they've finally delivered with something dumb, fun and properly exciting. Re-enacting the Jurassic Park T-Rex-eye-through-car-window thing with a jumbo jet was a lovely touch, just the kind of silly one-upmanship that Hollywood blockbusters do so well. They finally seem to be enjoying the potential of the series. It'll obviously now be cancelled.

Spare us the Cutter

So, confused, moralising, shark-eyed Cutter is dead, in an episode which appropriately catalogued (and, I hope, contained) all of the major faults with Primeval: it was a sprawling, unfocussed mess set entirely in brightly-lit unatmospheric public buildings which lack a sense of claustrophobia; the comedy was forced and cheap; changes of tone were handled as deftly as a piano moved by chimps; Becker; all attempts at introducing X-Files-style conspiracies were embarrassing; Becker again; and criminally wasting evil Helen who could be way more exciting than the female Dennis Hopper she's become.

I just hope that with Cutter went all of the clutter of previous seasons. All I want is scary dino sci fi trash with the odd cute bloke to swoon over – like last week. Stop making it look so hard.

Blinking 'eck

Doctor Who cast a long shadow over Primeval this week. In a good way. Clearly they've realised there's been a lack of atmosphere and suspense in the series up till now, and attempts are being made to spook it up a bit. Hence, mythical beasts from the past, supernatural overtones and horror movie devices. Haunted house: check. Spooky girl in a red coat: check. Kids disappearing years ago: check. Hapless comic relief guy: check.

There were loads of things I liked about this episode, in fact it may be my favourite so far. Firstly, they kept the dull characters out of it and focussed on the freakishly made-over Abby, dappy Connor and Claudia Brown or whatever the fuck she's called these days. Secondly they did the excellent genre trick of stealing from the best, so there were tons of parallels with Stephen Moffatt's Doctor Who stories, especially the blood-curdling Blink, as well as with Stephen King. Thirdly, they kept the story small and claustrophobic rather than the old Primeval 'let a Mammoth loose on the M1' tactic. On the downside there's now so many regular characters that it's turning into cretaceous Crossroads. I'm hoping this means there will be a bloodbath of the boring before the end of the series.

And suddenly I have a whole new reason to watch. Oh yes. Detective Danny Quinn, played by the stupendously sexy Jason Flemyng. I mean, really. Proper acting and everything. Which it bloody well needs to compensate for Becker: Vin Diesel played by Jimmy Carr. Not that Flemyng needs to act to keep me watching. He just needs to frown, wiggle those hyper-mobile eyebrows and say absolutely anything with that syrup-over-sandpaper voice of his. Swoon.

Primeval goes rogue

I happen to love Primeval. I know, I know, it's like admitting to a sexual fetish for John McCririck. Last year it rebooted itself by jumping through an anomaly into a completely different version of Earth, seemingly so that all the characters could just be a bit cooler. This year it's started merging Egyptology with dinosaurs, which has set off my StargateSense (basically inducing nausea and shaking).

Abby appears to have got the London Look from Rimmell, sleeping in more black eye shadow than Rameses himself, but let's hope Connor can shake off both his Pete Doherty wardrobe and the slight whiff that's followed him of being a young Neil Morrissey. Still, they've introduced a couple of newbies to sex it up: Sarah Page and Captain Becker: a pair of svelte, pouty and highly unlikely types. So far she's acted him off the screen. Here's hoping he improves or gets eaten by a gorgonopsid.

No doubt about it, this season looks way more ambitious than previous ones: more action and adventure, a bit of Indiana Jones and Unit from Dr Who thrown in, neither of which are bad things in my book. And this episode was much less reliant on Nick's moralising and pining for Claudia Brown than the last season, which it bloody well needed to be. We want an hour of dinosaurs eating children and stamping on Renault Clios, not Nick Cutter furrowing his brow and being tortured about plot twists from two seasons ago.

Of course, it needs lots more of mad, evil Helen, the Servalan du jour with her heaving bosom and prehistoric grooming regime, to assure my full engagement. Sure, it's not The Wire, but if it were I probably wouldn't be watching it...