Harry’s Place Arts

I saw it previewed on Newsnight Review.

Much as I hate finding myself in agreement with the rent-a-panel, it was plainly obvious from the brief clips they showed it was going to be irredeemable cack.

“It was, without doubt, the worst programme I have ever seen.”

It was entertainment. No more, no less. There are probably worse series out there.

I suspect real archaeologists felt about it the way real crime scene investigators feel about ‘CSI’: “Those gadgets! And they get the results so quick! And how the hell does she afford that enormous house in Bath on an archaeologist’s salary!”

I didn’s see it but could it really be any worse than eldorado or triangle? (for younger hp readers triangle was the drama series set on a north sea ferry)

I want to watch it now LOL

I can’t watch any TV at present (unless I use the Iplayer thingy on the BBC website) as our living room is being re-plastered. Still, sorry to know it was disappointing; I loved “Life on Mars” (although watching it again on DVD some of the plots had huge holes in them).

OK, I’m going to have to use the i-player thingy. You’ve awoken my curiosity

I’ll let you know.

I see they’re trying for a spooks/CSI with a hint of Dan Brown, but all the elements are hackneyed:

*The driven boss-women with a secret that will be built up until the series finale - probably Excalibur.
*The older beardy know-all who wants to go down the pub
*The new girl trying to make an impression
etc

Choosing the Knights Templar for the 1st episode is presumably supposed to hook in the Da Vinci Code mob, but unfortunately (because of Dan Brown) everyone knows quite a lot about the Templar now, so the basic factual errors are more apparent.

A similar problem applies to archaeology itself. Thanks to Time Team, we all have a pretty good idea of what can be done in a short-term archaeological dig and what can’t. We know that Geophysics shows soil resistance, but doesn’t show a recognisable human body. We know you find lots of broken pottery and different coloured mud, not a chainmail breast-piece with the cloth still on it.

Then there’s the obligatory BBC bit where you have some extremist Christians plotting to kill all the muslims. Not in itself a bad plotline, but it was done quite strangely and tangentially to the main plot of the episode. There was a point when, for no obvious reason, we were shown an online video of the Christian extremists about the “muslim threat” with shots of Abu Hamza’s street prayer meetings.

There are two kids with big swords, and one cuts the head off a friendly muslim guy - a guy who agrees to meet the sword-wielding maniac for a chat under a secluded bridge after already escaping him once.

Oh, and there was the True Cross too. Obviously.

This review is all over the place but so was the programme.

Then there’s the obligatory BBC bit where you have some extremist Christians plotting to kill all the muslims.

*rolls eyes*

Ladies and gentlemen, your license fee at work, rewriting reality in a dhimmitudinal way par exellence.

The programme was utterly PC…. to the extent that this must be one of the few occasions when Julie Graham didn’t get her kit off.

I do agree with this comment, and I used to have a big thing for Julie Graham. Even if she is a complete looney-tune.

David T, after the positive writeup you gave Robin Hood its heartening to see that even you can be shocked where tv drama is concerned. The Bone Kickers trailer alone caused me to have a conniption fit.

Wot, worse than Strange?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_(TV_series)

was just a poorly-conceived missh-mash of the US series Bones and programmes like waking the dead which itself inexplicably gets a good press even though it’s just as hammy and ridiculous. Wasn’t the worst programme ever made, wasn’t the best.

Oh, lighten up. It was meant to be escapist hokum, and it was. I love The Sopranos and The Wire but I don’t want every drama to be like them.

I love hokum. I rather like trashy tv in general, but I turned off because I couldn’t cope with the pisspoor dialogue and shoddy characterisation. A waste of fine actors, and a huge waste of a great idea. The script-writers are at fault for that, and the production team for not having the balls to insist on re-writes. Which, I presume, they cannot have done.

At least you lot had a chance to watch it.

I live in an out of the way place called “Scotland” where “native” programmes have priority over everything else. We had to watch* “River City” instead, which is also complete cack but it’s SCOTTISH cack. This apparently means that you can suspend all rules about merit, taste and intelligence.

If you want to understand BBC Scotland then think of the BBC in the rest of the UK and then replace some half- decent programmes with unmitigated rubbish (but SCOTTISH rubbish).

*Actually we didn’t, because we’ve seen it before and we know it’s cack.

[...] I was not the only one not impressed with the show. David T weighs in as do people on the Bonekicker [...]

I live in an out of the way place called “Scotland”

*adopts Nelson Muntz voice*

Ha-Hah!

Never mind old bean, I’m sure you can claim political assylum down here in damp Dorsetshire.

River City is certainly kack, but it’s self-aware kack and simply out to represent the mundane lives of a bunch of people on a disused whisky distilllery. Same went for Take the High Road (which used my old high school, one which later lost an entire wing to fire, as did one of my primaries).

So, take that back!

I agree with all the above, but the more daft it became, the more I enjoyed it. Possibly because the people I was watching it with were chatting so loudly I couldn’t hear the TV.

I won’t be watching parts 2-6.

Strange was just mad.

Same went for Take the High Road

Oh, I remember that. It was, alongside A Country Practise, Glenroe (of which Ven will no doubt add some pertinent information) and later Shortland Street, a stalwart feature of 1990s UTV afternoon scheduling.

I have to confess to, even had I not been in teuchter-land, would not have watched it. Doesn’t look good, though.

From t’other page:

Shame on you BBC - I didn’t think you could sink any lower.

Have you not read John Simpson’s piece on Zimbabwe?

Anyone remember this? 12.30pm, before the Afternoon news?

I thinking yesterday that this one programme could do more to bring the license fee into disrepute tham all of the historic lib-left bias. It was the worst I have seen for years.
Those Beebies were really brave taking on Christian extremists like that. A blow for freedom of speech.

Yup, Morgorth. Huge in Gibraltar, apparently. Not as good as this.

The daft premise sounds rather fun, the americans could have made a proper show out of it by the sounds of things. I’m disappointed to see it’s not getting a repeat on BBC3, which sort of implies they knew it was a bit of a dud before they broadcast it.

“all the elements are hackneyed”

Also true of Doctor Who. And yet that is lauded as being great. I dont get it.

Thankfully, didn’t see it. Mrs Pangloss did though. We both have a huge capacity for silly television, but she figured she ain’t going to watch again, it was that bad. Shame really.

I saw one clip where the team found a piece of wood with blood on it and went silent as if Elvis had wondered into the room piggy-backing Jesus. If this series has any appeal it could only be of the car crash variety.

Just read on The Times’ site that the scriptwriters wanted more freedom to produce shows without interference - they should stick to the writing and let the editors, directors and producers do their things.

My bottom jaw has only just returned to it’s usual horizontal squareness… what a pile of shite. “I found this peice of wood” states character after having carted around said huge chunk of tree for five minutes without anyone commenting, she only saw fit to mention it when someone else started banging on about the ‘one true cross’!

It reminded me of kids TV, except that I’ve not witnessed dialogue that bad on kids TV…

“Same went for Take the High Road”

Cheers Alec, I’d managed to purge that horror from my memory. Mind you, I can remember catching while living in Reading & realising it was a marvelous cure for homesickness. Suspect River City would serve just as well.

I’ve only just watched this courtesy of iplayer. I love rubbish telly, and will no doubt watch this again, but good grief. “Tell me your secrets” FFS.

Also, they find some swords and coins from the middle east, why on Golgafrincham would they assume that means that there were Saracens there? Couldn’t the knights have conceivably brought back the odd sword and coin?

Meh. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Strange, Bugs, Torchwood, even Primeval but this was clearly done by those Mitchell and Webb lazy scriptwrights. Just goes to show you how good Doctor Who still is…

Now that neither Who or BG are on, I’m obviously going to watch the pigging thing though innit.

It was a neat idea (especially the Templar plot, which seems to have riled all the right idiots) and could have been very good, but between a few massive plotholes and Julie Graham and Hugh Bonneville turning in the worst performances of their lives, it was atrocious.

A new high in lows! This show is destined to be a cult classic. We get pretty bad or weak shows all the time but Bonekickers reaches that rare status - a show that’s so terrible in everyway possible - it’s good. Nay, it’s a unintentional work of genius! I can’t wait for tonight’s episode - isn’t the whole of American history going to be re-written? And what about the sword story arc - Excalibur? Will there be a link to the new ‘Merlin’ series?

Will Gillian beg the ground to ‘REVEAL YOUR SECRETS!’ Will Dolly cheerfully repair for a pint after involvement in arson and death, will Viv impress us all with her singing and will Ben wish he were back in Hustle?

Well done BBC,

It’s good to know that you can completely and utterly ‘fuck up’!

Having watched the second episode, I’ve now changed my mind. I know agree that yes, it is indeed the worst programme ever to receive BBC license fee payers hard earned cash.

“This show is destined to be a cult classic.”

No, I don’t think so. This episode was so bad, it couldn’t even be called ‘entertainment’.

Ooh I look forward to my iplayer-dl treat installment of Bonekickers after work tonight. (That’s early morning for you weird daytime types).

Oops I accidentally seem to have dropped this URL. Only people interested in theatre, science, or India would be interested I’m sure…

This show is destined to be a cult classic

Alas no, the second episode was only tosh, rather than amusingly horrendous. That said, I will be watching the third in the hope it returns to the low water mark of the first episode.

“We start digging!”. Ha! Classic. You really can’t teach this stuff.

while living in Reading

Living in Reading would make someone homesick for Belsen, frankly.

Pity that this can’t have become the Bonekickers thread. I know, I know, this is a blog not a forum. Still, the series continues to delight. The crystal encrusted fossilised corpse of Boudicca?!?

Oh, and who isn’t looking forward to the obligatory Iraq episode?

Boo!

I wanna talk about this program