Prisoners Wives unarresting

TV REVIEW

AFTER a promising start when loved-up Gemma (Emma Rigby) and husband Steve’s happy moment is shattered by police bursting in on them waving guns and shouting something about arresting him for murder, events on Prisoners Wives (BBC1 Tuesday) got depressingly slow.
The rest of the episode, the first of six, dealt with Gemma trying to cope with events, meeting wives of similar circumstances along the way and by similar circumstances, I mean their husbands are in jail too.
Those wives are Lou (Natalie Gavin) who is now the bread-winner, choosing weed-dealing as her version of a 9 to 5; Francesca (Polly Walker) on the other hand has plenty of money, mainly down to being married to international drug-runner Iain Glen (last seen as the odious Carlisle in Downton Abbey) and Harriet (Pippa Haywood), who, for some inexplicable reason, sat outside the prison all the time but refused to ever go in.
This had great potential – it just lacked execution; that and a decent script. The dialogue was clunky in parts and the idea that Gemma somehow thought she could keep the whole ‘husband in jail on suspicion of murder’ thing quiet was just ridiculous. There was some better moments, Francesca being at the centre of most of them, but they were too few and too far apart to warrant too much in the line of audience loyalty. The next few episodes would want to buck up considerably to maintain any interest.
Another crowd that would want to buck up and sort their lives out is the Geordie Shore lads and lassies. Following in Jersey Shore’s contrived docusoap format in which a bunch of tangoed, drunken, rowing lunatics are thrown together in a house for a few weeks, Newcastle’s version is a far more entertaining prospect than its American sister.
The second series started on Tuesday night and you know you’re in for some pillow-chewing laughter when one girl describes another as “well irritating – kinda like thrush”. That’s as classy as it gets I’m afraid but it’s a guilty (cringe) pleasure worth tuning in for, even once, as the one-liners are almost as quick as their ability to shed their clothes. Disturbing as this might sound though, there are far more frightening ideas for TV being floated around network land, none more so than the news that Del Boy is to head Stateside.
Remaking Only Fools and Horses for an American audience is tantamount to TV sacrilege but, nonetheless, a pilot episode is said to be in the works from writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley – whose last major hit was Scrubs and more recent project, Happy Endings, is still not sitting so well with me.
Apparently the adaptation is sticking closely to the BBC 1 series, which ran for ten brilliant years from 1981 to 1991 under the hat of ‘the misadventures of two brothers and their grandfather as they concoct outrageous and morally questionable get-rich-quick schemes in a bid to become rich’.
The thing is, how could a US audience ever appreciate the genius of the original Derek and Rodney Trotter and Co. in what was a truly unique ‘British’ comedy. Reanimating David Frost and Nicholas Lyndhurst’s depictions wouldn’t work for the Yank cousins (Shameless has proven that). No American slang could ever grasp the intent behind shouting ‘plonker’ at someone or rubbing your hands in glee cackling ‘lovely jubbly’.
The one saving grace that could make the project work is the report that Steve Carell has thrown his hat into the ring for the job of Del Boy, describing it as his “dream role”. Carrell has already put in stellar work in the reworking of David Brent in the US version of The Office and could be the man for the job. I’m not holding out much hope though – it’s hard not to see how the likes of Trigger, Boycie and Denzil won’t end up like something straight out of Trailer Park Boys. Perish the thought!
Television has become truly global through the efforts of the internet and viewer patterns are undergoing somewhat of an overhaul with the advent of the ‘on-demand’ arena.  No longer can a programme’s success be judged on the ratings for its original airtime – most shows can now be watched at any stage of the day and the arrival of Netflix into Ireland is only going to expand on this.
Like newspapers, broadcasters are having to change their modus operandi and embrace the online world or face being left behind in an increasingly competitive market. The arrival of Netflix, coupled with LoveFilm, allows a viewer to download any film for a nominal monthly fee. Jumping further on this bandwagon are BskyB, who are set to launch an internet television service later this year around the same time as YouView, which will offer catchup and on-demand programmes and recording facilities via an internet-connected box on top of the TV and has the backing of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and BT among others.
Sky’s new venture comes as it announced a decrease in the number of subscribers signing up to its television services in the three months to December 31, yet broadband and telephone packages are on the up, so it shows a change in audience participation with the media outlet. In a week where the organisation announced 800 new jobs for a new call centre in Dublin, the days of staring at the small box in the corner of the room could soon be in for a serious change of scenery.