Re-doing things good, like

Well, they’ve only gone and done it. All my fears, all my trepidation – it was all for nought. The new series of Red Dwarf has just aired – well, the first episode – and it wasn’t shit. It was, in fact, pretty good.

Not amazing. Not hilarious. Not life-definingly brilliant. But actually good. With jokes in it that made me laugh. Even the reaction on Twitter seems to be mainly positive, though I’m not sure if that’s because people actually liked it or just because I’m in an echo chamber of people who share similar opinions to my own.

Next up: the revival of Bottom. If they get that right (make ridiculous double entendres, hit each other with pans, come up with brilliant names for off-screen characters) then this year will be an interesting one. Because it might actually be one I remember as ‘pretty good’.

They’ve brought back one of my favourite shows and done it well, they’re bringing back another one, they’ve brought back my favourite game of all time and it’s [embargoed opinion you can figure out from the tone of this blog], they even brought back Coco Pops when we demanded it. Oh wait, that wasn’t this year. The point stands though.

Don’t be so foul.

Ah, Bottom humour.

I don’t think I have much else to say. I’m happy about British TV comedy for the first time in a long-ass time. I should write some.

Rioting reminders

Reading all this stuff about the riots in London (it isn’t made up of specific, individual locations to me – it’s still just ‘London’) made me think of one thing, and one thing alone:

This.

Yes, I could have just Tweeted this, but instead it can be today’s blog. The unstoppable fall towards utter blogging failure continues.

Bottom is on, let’s talk about Bottom

Bottom is on the channel Dave as I write this. Bottom is fantastic, and anyone who doesn’t think so can immediately leave life: you are not wanted. For those unfamiliar, Bottom is the story of two down and out losers, living together in a horrible flat in Hammersmith and generally… well, existing. They’re Richard Richard – a horrible, pathetic little pervert of a man with middle class delusions – and Edward Hitler – a psychopathic, horrible, pathetic man (with added mild perversion) and general delusions. They are nobodies and are of no worth whatsoever. They fight a lot. They absolutely hate each other. They’re weird. And mental. It’s classic BBC comedy.

Many people don’t like Bottom. They find it puerile, pointless and humourless. These people are not your friends, and are actually people incapable of appreciating comedy. It’s a simple formula and involves very few ingredients: incredible levels of ridiculous violence (being thrown down the stairs, electrocuted, attacked with cricket bats and cattle prods and – of course – having your legs sawn off with a chainsaw, for example); incredibly simple, obvious humour; and relentless double-entendres (“have you got the Union Jack sandwiches?” “No, it’s just the way my trousers are hanging”). It’s slapstick, and there isn’t enough slapstick around now. Slapstick is great.

This is the kind of television you would never see being made anymore: relentlessly unlikeable characters who have absolutely no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. That just wouldn’t work with focus-group lead programming. That’s not to say you don’t love the characters, mind you: they’re twats, but they’re your twats.

Bottom is great. I’m going to stop writing and carry on watching it now.