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The Reverend
09-26-2006, 02:36 PM
Okay, this was inspired by being awake at some ungodly hour several months ago now and turning on the TV but was reminded last night by some shit program about haunted homes. What I came across has to be be one one of the most genius programmes ever made, so bad you wonder who on earth would commission it, let alone who would take it seriously. Unfortunately it hasn't been on for some time but I hope it comes back as it's one of the funniest programs ever made.

Have I Been Here Before? presented by Phillip Schofield is the masterpiece of which I speak, in which F-list 'celebrities' are regressed to their past lives by an awfully annoying woman using pseudo spiritual speak and an extremely patronising tone.

So X celebrity comes in and are made to lie on the couch. Then dippy blonde lady starts talking to them in her horrible voice (think self help tape in 4 easy instalments ordered off the advert pages in the back of The Sun). Said celebrity then starts having some sort of spasms, face twitches and grunts, very much like the 'psychic' from Britains Most Haunted when he feels a spirit.
The sheer hilarity of seeing Jane 'Cruise ship' McDonald writhing around, waxing on about how the other dancers in the arabian palace are seeing The Sultan when she is love with him or Joe Pasquale being a young lad sent off to fight world war one is ultimate comedy. It's the worst acting you'll ever see and looks like something out of The Exorcist...


If The Exorcist was some kind of nonsense ITV programme starring people who aren't actors pretending to be possessed.


Just when you thought things couldn't get better, they then proceed to re-enact the regression of the celebrity with cheap costumes and bad special effects, just so you can understand better what it was they were seeing when they were taken back to their past lives.

After all this hard work, Phillip Schofield goes on some sort of fact finding mission, trying to determine whether the person they were in their past life actually existed or not.

I don't know how they do it but the woman must be brilliant as every celebrity gets a good regression session. None of them ever don't go back to a past life so her skills must be amazing for her to induce this in 100% of her subjects.

A description of some different episodes from the ITV website (so good you actually couldn't make it up) :
Pop Idol judge Neil Fox turns out to have had a musical past life as a lute-playing carpenter in medieval time who kills the local Baron to win the hand of the women he loves

Instead of a helicopter, Anneka Rice takes to the high seas in her past life as a 16 year old boy who stows away on a ship bound for the America's in the 16th century.

Jennie Bond may have regal connections in this life but in her past life she was a destitute young girl in the 18th century who gets caught stealing and is thrown into prison, where she gives birth to an illegitimate child. However, the ever resourceful Jennie manages to escape and starts a new life overseas.

There's no Buck's Fizz in Cheryl Baker's past life as a carpenter in 19th century London who turns to drink after his wife dies of TB.

Melinda Messenger finds herself in a darkened room dressed only in sack cloth, an old woman weeps for her lost baby and past love. Visions of swords, armour and a man with a helmet appear before her through the black.

As Barry in EastEnders, Shaun Williamson always tried to be a Knight in shining armour, and it seems as though he was in a past life! He was Richard Florin, a French knight in the 14th century, and recounts tales of forbidden love, bloody battles and his own gruesome death.

How come none of them ever have boring past lives, surely not everything that happened in the past was that exciting???

Why does some sort of love story usually come into it??

Why would anyone think they might retain any credibility whatsoever after appearing on this programme???

Why? WHY?!?!?

Soooo.... What's your favourite trash TV?? Utter shite but strangely compelling?? Hilarious but not intentionally??? Share with everybody....

bokonon
09-26-2006, 03:15 PM
Haha, I've caught the odd episode of 'Have I Been Here Before?' - It is dodgy stuff! I saw Toyah Wilcox on there once and she was "regressed" to when she was some nun/prisoner in the 1600's (or whenever). By the end of the show though it was revealed she'd been in a movie where she played the mother of a nun/prisoner in the 1600's! Something like that anyway :)

I watch an unhealthy amount of utter shite yet strangely compelling television...Most of which I couldn't give the names for.

I suppose my football fascination is a bit on the sad side, I'll flick teletext on throughout my Saturday, I'll watch 'Final Score' which is essentially teletext with a presenter and I'll tune into 'Match Of The Day' even though I know the results.

I watch a fair bit of stuff on BBC Learning Zone, from the fairly interesting 'Rough Science' through to that show with the little fella that goes, "Bish Bash Bosh"...

shedtroll
09-26-2006, 05:29 PM
They Look stoned....Is it possible they just had a joint before hand. :D

lithium
09-26-2006, 06:27 PM
:D I've seen the past lives thing, comedy gold!

I've caught Most Haunted a few times late at night on LivingTV (new freeview box, just flicking through, honesthttp://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/embarassed.gif) with Yvette Fielding off of Blue Peter and Derek Acorah as their resident spiritualist, it might be him you were referring to. Quite disturbing when he becomes "possessed" by the spirit of whoever happens to be haunting this week's house. It can be genuinely spooky, I'll give them that, although it becomes boring with everyone always jumping at their own shadows or the crew "accidentally" knocking some scissors off a table... but if it's all an elaborate set-up it's very well done. But you get the impression that this man (Acorah) is probably quite seriously mentally ill. Compelling, but shit, TV:)

Harry Tuttle
09-26-2006, 09:50 PM
My personal favourite was a show called "Change That", in the episode I saw they painted a perfectly good chest of drawers green then strapped it onto a shopping trolly. They seriously thought it was worth 30 minutes of telly.