You Have Been Watching, Tuesday 10pm, Channel 4

Posted by Jane Murphy

Following in the great tradition of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News For You and They Think It’s All Over comes yet another quiz show, in which it doesn’t really matter which of the celebrity guests wins - just so long as they keep the funnies up throughout.

You Have Been Watching is presided over by deadpan TV critic Charlie Brooker, who - for last night’s opening episode - was joined by singer/OK! regular Jamelia, quiz show rent-a-face Rufus Hound and comedian Richard Herring, sporting a mildly off-putting Hitler moustache. (He’s reclaiming clipped ‘taches from the Nazis for a new show at Edinburgh, apparently.)

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m just easily pleased nowadays, but I was already crying with laughter before the quiz proper had got underway. It was a joke about Jordan and Piers Morgan that did it. Hmmm… maybe I’m just overtired.

The quiz itself consisted of four rounds - in which everyone basically took the p*** out of easy targets, such as The One Show and Come Dine With Me. Then, as is traditional, Charlie employed a somewhat spurious scoring system to tot up who’d won.

Now, I’m all for making fun of rubbish TV - but national treasures Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley are surely off limits. And there’s no real need to poke fun at Come Dine With Me when the whole thing’s intentionally hilarious anyway. However, for round three, Charlie and his researchers managed to dig up a little-known “gem” in the form of US show, Deadliest Warrior.

Made by Spike TV, the programme pits historical “warriors” against each other in a hypothetical battle to the death. So we were treated to footage of William 'Braveheart' Wallace getting one over on a scary Zulu - before the grand final, played out inexplicably in a US car park, saw the Taliban take on the IRA.

If this had been Harry Hill’s TV Burp, they’d all have bundled into the studio for a massive fight before the ad break. However, it wasn’t - so we just had Charlie asking his guests who they thought would win. “I’m definitely going to go with the Taliban,” said Jamelia. Now, there’s a cover-line you won’t be seeing on next week’s OK! magazine…

So did you watch You Have Been Watching - and will you be watching it again? Tell us what you think.

Picture: Channel 4

SEE ALSO:
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe: our blogger’s view >>
Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe - the best thing on TV? >>
More must-see entertainment shows >>

Comments

[hazza]

easily 1 of the funniest shows I've watched for ages. After watching screenwipe & newswipe I kind of had the idea this would be about a million miles away from Noel & telly adicts (thank god). Rufus Hound & Richard Herring were excelent choices of guests but Jamelia seemed way out of depth. Give her credit, she did give it her best I thought. Just having 3 fringe comedians & Brooker on the show may be a bit much for main stream tv so I suppose we'll see more 'household' names on the show as the season goes on. Overall 9/10. Much better then watching re-runs of 'classic' satire on Dave

[s-p]

had me laughing out loud virtually all the way through - brooker isn't and doesn't come across as a comedian host trying to keep the laughs going, but still had me teary-eyed with glee.

with so many tv channels now, this is what we should be getting - a program with a brain, that doesn't want to be the watered down, politically correct, this-is-what-you-should-be-finding-amusing crap that the tv bosses like to appease the masses with.

on a scale of 1 to f, i'd give it 5 stars.

[G]

Thought it was crap turned over after a 5 minutes. Give it one season.

[Mel]

Hoping for a decent quiz show? Sounds like you have no life. Maybe Charlie Brooker has "sold out" but it was funny. I ask, can you do better?

[Rob]

Garbage ! Ten minutes was all I could stomach watching.

[Ryan]

This had me screaming with laughter - especially the send up of that crass American show at the end. Here's to more!

[Nigel]

Hysterical - I loved the venom and bile that Brooker had exuding from every pore - The guests (barring the clearly floundering Jamelia - why book her?) were loving it too - the sign of a good celeb game show.

[capt]

Aha!

Charlie has a mortgage to pay too.

Preferred him skulking about in the schedule's late night shadows really.

[jim grim]

what a load of "RUBBISH"for this to be called funny "I DONT THINK SO"

[Bridlington Carl]

I enjoyed it. Charlie Brooker is a very funny writer and presenter - Screenwipe and his feature in Saturday's Guardian (Screenburn) are laugh-out-loud funny. The show had some great one-liner's, although the choice of Jamelia as guest was poor; she was clearly out of her depth. The show can only get better and I'll be watching next week. Nice one Charlie.

[Debs]

I thought it was a load of rubbish. I was hoping for a decent quiz show about TV programmes in the tradition of telly adicts, and got a re-hash of Have I got news for you/mock the week/8 out of 10 cats and all the other similar so called quiz programmes that are on at the moment.

[Dissapointed veiwer]

I saw about 10 minutes then turned over to Dave and watched something funny. I won't be watching again. maybe I did not give it a chance but come on 10 minutes and not even a smile from me.