Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, Tuesday 10.30pm, BBC4

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:
Lots has changed since the last series of TV magazine show Screenwipe, as telly critic and all-round angry journalist Charlie Brooker pointed out in last night's series opener. The global economy has broken, a black man has been elected President and, of course, biggest of all, Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left a rude phone call on an old man's answering machine.

Of key interest to Brooker, though, was how the antics of the man he calls a "long-haired Dickensian dicking machine", the outraged newspaper campaign – which, remember, then moved on to attack Mock the Week and Top Gear – and subsequent BBC obsequiousness will affect TV comedy.

The advent of phone-ins and interactive TV, he explained, has made viewers accustomed to changing the outcome of telly events. "As a result thousands of joyless cry babies have learnt to treat the whole of TV as a reality show in which they can vote off the things they don't like, by complaining to Ofcom, whether they saw the offending broadcast or not," he said. It was one of a series of insights that made it hard not to change the way you look at your tellybox.

Oh dear, I've made this show sound really high-minded and serious, haven't I? It was also very funny indeed. Whether he was pretending to masturbate to Paul Ross's Big Black Book of Horror (it's on The Paranormal Channel apparently), describing The X Factor's Eoghan Quigg as a "peeled Jamie Oliver foetus", or, while watching Britannia High on his sofa at home, responding to a character singing "I'm a man," with the words, "No, you're a c***", there was edgy, childish and hilarious irreverence by the bucketload. Take note, Brand and Ross.

Speaking of TV trends, you can still watch the show on the BBC's iPlayer if you missed it. Hurrah!

Comments

[Elly]

Charlie Brooker Rocks! He tells it like it is and doesnt faff about. I like the way he tells us about how the industry works, even if it makes himself look like a bit of a twonk. The man is Hilarious.
And a hornbag to boot! :)