Castaway
on BBC1
Hmmm,
television is missing something… Now what could it be… Ah
yes, that’s it! What television really needs right now is another
reality series.
Perhaps not, but the latest arrival is quite likely to be a rather welcome
addition to the overflowing mass of formulaic, derivative tripe that
frequently fills our airwaves. Finally after seven long years, Castaway
is back, and it’s undergone a few changes.
Back in the day, before builder Craig, lesbian ex-trainee-nun Anna and
big daddy Darren had even set foot in the original Big Brother house
in Bow, a group of people were sent by the BBC to the remote Scottish
island of Taransay and filmed. Drawing upon themes of the time, this
disparate group of volunteers took part in Castaway 2000, the Beeb’s
social experiment to see how a group of strangers could build their
own community away from modern society.
The aim of Castaway in 2007 is the same as it was when the original
series aired: it’s a social experiment which takes ordinary people
far, far away from their everyday lives and all the mod cons they take
for granted. Viewers watch and learn with them as they try to build
a new community and discover what really matters to them when the usual
hustle and bustle of daily life is stripped away.
Whereas the original series lasted a year and we were often left waiting
for months to get an update programme - this time it’s tighter,
it’s condensed and it will be fed to us in tasty daily nuggets
of freshness, just how we’ve come to like it.
For the next 12 weeks, they will live together on an island off the
coast of New Zealand. This unusual, testing environment will mean things
are going to be much tougher for the volunteers this time around. For
example, they’ll have no electricity for cooking, and they’ll
have to do a lot more basic construction and use their ingenuity to
make daily life more comfortable.
The castaways (not contestants) each have their own reason for wanting
to undertake this unique experience and it is hoped that they will all
achieve some personal goal or discovery along the way. Cynically you
might assume that there may be those in attendance whose personal goal
it is to achieve fame or get a job as a TV presenter. This may be the
case, despite the Beeb’s best efforts to filter them out, but
we shall have to judge that as the action unfolds.
With weekly editions on BBC1 and the daily updates on BBC Three you
won’t have to wait long to get filled in on what’s happening.
Various other tweaks to the format mean it’ll bear much more of
a resemblance to other reality formats than the original show.
Interactivity is perceived as increasingly important these days, so
the viewer at home will get a chance to meddle with things from time
to time. Which frankly is a bit of a shame as it is just this kind of
unnecessary meddling with the format that in my mind taints Big Brother
and I’m A Celebrity and it also weakens the programmes claimed
objectives. The addition of tasks, challenges and obstacles via public
voting, I think, merely takes away from the initial concept, but I’ll
get over it!
Best of all amidst the whole set-up is the choice of presenter. Danny
Wallace, or King Danny the First as he’s known to many, will surely
inject exactly the right mix of eagerness and humour into proceedings
to ensure it doesn’t become jaded. Danny will interact with the
castaways for us and get under the skin of the project, while his daily
‘red button’ diaries will show us how he relates to the
unfolding events. But what a shame they decided to match up King Danny
with the reliably disappointing Richard Bacon for its sister show.
Danny
Wallace Interview
Doctor
Who
on BBC1
Oh
yes! The Doctor is back… and it’s about time. I don’t
know about you but personally I was going a bit loopy waiting for the
latest series to come around. What with the teasing end to Torchwood’s
series one, and the Christmas special and then the Sarah Jane Adventures
special, the days and weeks simply couldn’t pass quickly enough
for this big kid. But now number ten and his new companion are so close
that I’m salivating. The waiting is almost over and we’ll
set off again in the TARDIS at the end of this month when The Doctor
meets a medical student called Martha Jones and new baddies the Judoon
decide to take her hospital to the moon. The Judoon, in case you’re
wondering, are kind of space-stormtrooper-rhino things. Fantastic!
During the series we’ll see the return of some old faces, one
in particular will be incredibly large, housed in a big jar and will
be harbouring a ‘great secret’, and there’ll be old
foes too. Of course the worst kept secret in the whoniverse is that
the Daleks will be back. This time we’ll see more of the Cult
of Skaro (who used emergency temporal shifts to escape being sucked
into the void during the battle of Canary Wharf) and they’re getting
up to something sinister in 1930's New York. A trip back to Elizabethan
times will see The Doctor meeting Shakespeare, and not for the first
time I might add.
Famous names are positively ripping the seams of the new series with
the list of stars including Mark Gatiss, Ardol O’Hanlon, Jessica
Stevenson, Derek Jacobi and John Simm.
With episode titles as obscure as ‘42’ and ‘Blink’
there are sure to be plenty of big surprises in store, but three years
into the return of this fabulous franchise and the press are climbing
over each other to reveal spoilers, casting and plot details at the
slightest whiff of inside information - so the cats may be out of their
respective bags in thirteen weeks time. Although the production team
appear to be much more practiced at keeping things under wraps this
year - much to the annoyance of some whovians - so maybe we’ll
still get caught blissfully unaware.
The Face of Boe’s secret is enticing indeed, but the question
you really need to be asking yourself this year is… who is Mr
Saxon?
