You Have Been Watching

TV Review: You Have Been Watching

Weirdly, I think we're seeing what Charlie Brooker is really like as a person. The scowling, self-loathing ranter stuck in his flat on Screenwipe is as much a creation as anything David Bowie ever came up with. Sure, it's based on something within him, but to assume that he's constantly followed around by rainclouds is pretty stupid.

I am a big fan of TV critic Charlie Brooker, both in print and on screen. As his BBC4 show Screenwipe proved, no one else spews vitriol with such wit, charm and amiability. C4 obviously thinks so too, and has given Brooker his own TV based quiz show, You Have Been Watching.

And Brooker doesn't disappoint. He's as sharp, insightful and snide as ever. The problem is with the format, which foists three guests upon him. As they are nowhere near as funny as the host, their presence first becomes a distraction, then an irritation.

Much the same can be said about the quiz aspect of the show, which is treated with such bored disdain by Brooker that it makes you wonder why they bothered with it at all.

Get rid of the guests, get rid of the quiz and you would have something worth watching. Namely, Screenwipe.

However You Have Been Watching did unearth some splendid clips of bizarre television around the world, the best of which was from a blood-drenched combat recreation show pitting history's warriors against each other - Zulu versus William Wallace, Apache versus Ninja, culminating in the IRA taking on the Taliban in a car park. For the record, the IRA won.

After last week's patchy opener, let's hope that the quality of Charlie Brooker's latest TV-will-eat-itself improves substantially this week. I can't help feeling that the scrappy quiz format holds this back from being a scabrous discussion about the highs and lows of the week's television. Maybe the viewer interaction will help - all week, Brooker and his team have been compiling viewer observations about Torchwood: Children of Earth.