I think I liked him on Life's Too Short.

Watching last night's ep now and I can't believe I'm saying this about a Brooker programme, but I am finding this incredibly tedious. It's not up-to-date and it's not insightful.

And whose decision was it to imitate Russell Howard's bit of repeating vt clips out of their original context ad nauseum? F**k.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with this week's. Had a few good bits but not great and that Pope reaction lady was annoying.

It is getting a bit squidgy, I stick to my original theory he's sticking it mostly to Black Mirror.

It was in episode one when they had that amazing training video on how to survive a massacre that felt like old skool Brooker.

Charlie

Once again not good enough

"Now go away"

Quote: sootyj @ February 22 2013, 12:46 PM GMT

And the Tim Key bit.

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What the fast forward button was made for.

Overall, this series is a little weary. I'm sort of thinking "yes, very good" to the jokes rather than laughing out loud. The desk chat with other comedians has been lifeless every week so far.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ February 22 2013, 12:48 PM GMT

That wasn't exactly one of his best bits, but Key is hugely talented. Go watch him do a live hour some time; amazing.

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^^Seconding that. It was not such a good one this week, but Tim Key is one of the reasons I am watching this.

This show has a bit of a 'reunion tour' feeling about it. It's like they've jammed together all the things we liked in previous shows, but because they've been artificially stuck together in an incoherent way it lacks what made it good the first time and it struggles to keep up with the current trends.

One of my favourite Screenwipes was the one where Brooker interviewed writers, but the chat section of this show doesn't fit with anything else in the show. I like Tim Key and I like the 'Barry Shitpeas' character, but if you have them and Doug Stanhope and 'Philomena Cunk' in one show there is just too much going on. I liked the Brooker's criticisms of public opinion on 10 O'Clock Live, but reading internet comments out loud is feeble.

Similarly, if you compare the piece on the coverage of Raoul Moat and the reporting of school massacres to the piece on the coverage of the LAPD shooter you see a massive difference in quality and style. The latter piece had mawkish sentimental music playing in the background and had nothing more to say than 'rolling news reporting seems simultaneously sensationalised and jaded', which we all already know.

Most criminal is the outdatedness of the news stories. You might get away with making jokes about last week's news if you're the only topical satire show around, but not when there are several others beating you to the jokes by a week.

Maybe we should just have a Logan's Run style cull of comedians when they hit a certain age? Let's face it, none of them cut the mustard after a certain point and are all doomed to disappoint us.

That'll be in the next Black Mirror series.

Quote: zooo @ February 23 2013, 1:02 PM GMT

That'll be in the next Black Mirror series.

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I didn't used to but now I love the Tim Key bits. I find him really funny in everything he does though, his interview with Simon Amstell is great.

Didn't Brooker state recently that he was quitting his TV critic column because he didn't feel comfortable slating celebrities any more?

He probably doesn't want to affect his wife's chances of getting TV work or something like that.

He shouldn't really be doing this stuff then, should he?

There's a good game you can now play, which big story from last week's news will be in next week's "Weekly Wipe"?