The Games want to be Olympic, but it is a three-ring circus
AT the Lea Valley Athletics Center an emotional Christine McGuinness sounded less like a 100-metre hurdler and more like Lee Harvey Oswald as she prepared for ITV's latest celebrity challenge this week.
“The thought of the crowd, the people, the gun. . .” the grassy knoll, the CIA cover-up.
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“I only have one chance,” she sobbed.
But who would take them out? A fellow competitor? One of the ITV presenters?
Or, better yet, the idiot who brought this thing back from the dead?
It's The Games, which spanned four series in the mid-1990s and is remembered, if at all, for Bobby Davro's spectacular belly flop during the ten-metre dive.
The show was axed in 2006 when even Channel 4 realized there was no more mileage to be gained from watching minor celebrities discover there were many more things they couldn't do very well.
NOSTALGIC REVISIONS
However, as you saw with The Ipcress File, the main commercial network is terribly prone to nostalgic brain farts, so it has been revived with a five-night live run and no small fuss over ITV, who threw almost everything at the big launch show from Monday.
As well as the twelve celebrity competitors, there was a marching band, acrobats and a team of presenters and experts including Holly Willoughby, Freddie Flintoff, Tyson Fury, Kammy, a 'comedian' called Yung Filly and the obligatory Alex Scott. , who alternated between a green Kermit suit at Crystal Palace and some Ming the Merciless slob at the Olympic pool.
The high level of staff was obviously intended to disguise the fact that there was very little action over the course of 90 minutes and they had to stroll and banter for their lives.
What it can never do, however, is obscure the fact that the Games remain a whole world of s**t*.
A sad state of affairs that became even more apparent during the first event, the women's 100 meters hurdles, which Christine, Olivia Attwood, Chelcee Grimes and three others completed with all the grace and ease of electroconvulsive therapy.
However, if you thought that was as bad as it was going to get, you didn't stop at the (un)synchronized diving or the men's hammer throw, a pre-recorded competition that recreated all the magic of your dad throwing two bags. take garden mulch to the green bin at the local recycling center and throw it in the “household waste”.
Since then we've also seen Coronation Street's Colson Smith fall over himself while canoeing and ITN newsreader Lucrezia Millarini recreate Jimmy Cagney's death scene from The Roaring Twenties in the 400m.
Occasionally, through complete incompetence, the Games can also enter so-bad-it's-good territory, as was the case when Strictly's Kevin Clifton and Olivia Attwood completed a five-metre jump in the ten-metre diving event after 12 weeks of training. .
None of it can be described as a spectator sport, however, and so the team at ITV go to extraordinary lengths to make you believe you are watching the essence of Super Saturday in London 2012.
“Tonight is going to be a belter.” “It's absolutely breathtaking.” “If you watch this at home, you will no longer be in your chair.”
Or maybe off-your-trolley mode, just to catch the thrill of watching Love Island's Wes Nelson pass Max George in the 50-metre splash.
However, the evidence from your own eyes does not lie. Nor did the little details, like the fact that they didn't even have a functioning stopwatch in the women's hurdles, where Chelcee Grimes and Phoenix Gulzar-Brown finished so far ahead of the stragglers that they ended up in a different zip code.
Holly Willoughby also gave the game away on the first day when she suggested there should be a handicap system because: “It's unfair.”
She also has a point. Christine McGuinness could shoot Wes Nelson in both legs and he would probably still beat Colson Smith over 400 yards, the viewers would probably still struggle to give a throw and I would still find it impossible to explain why ITV brought back The Games or to answer any questions you may have. question more complicated than Holly's humdinger at the beginning of the week.
“Kevin's background as a dancer, will that help him with hammer throwing?”
Only the Susan Calman series.
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UNEXPECTED idiots in the pocket area
THE CHASE, Bradley Walsh: “Which Detective Inspector first appeared in the novel Frost At Christmas?”
Nicky: “Poirot.”
Tipping point, Ben Shephard: “What word for a small house comes before the name of a dish made with ground beef topped with mashed potatoes?”
Joe: “From the shepherd.”
Clive Myrie: “The national park established in west-central Scotland in 2002 is called Loch Lomond and what?”
Shazia Mirza: “Monster of Loch Ness.”
RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS
ANT & Dec give their golden buzzer to Keiichi Iwasaki, who has already done Spain, Italy, Germany and Bulgaria's Got Talent.
The once brilliant SAS: Who Dares Wins turns into Deidre's Photo Casebook with “Sarah's Lesbian Bridesmaid Dilemma”.
Jaydee Dyer's Football Saturday stories make Paul Merson's reports sound like Alistair Cooke's Letter From America.
Freeze The Fear's mind-boggling desperation to destroy Patrice Evra's competitive spirit. And BBC1 show host Lee Mack asked: “When does it go from light entertainment to panic?”
Instead of the question on the lips of viewers: “When will this nonsense turn into light entertainment?”
MINDED BY WOKE BAFTAS
Suffice to say, if you really think foghorn Big Zuu is a nicer TV performer than Michael McIntyre and Graham Norton, then it's not a Bafta vote you need, it's watering by the neighbors when your owner goes on holiday .
But that's the level of lies they now have to tell themselves at BBC1's annual Bafta ceremony, where a fundamental ignorance of the TV medium and snobbery (Line Of Duty has never won a major award) has been reinforced by the cult of the wake.
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On Sunday evening this meant there wasn't even a shortlist for perhaps the two best shows of the past year, Clarkson's Farm and The White Lotus, but there were telling nominations for Steph's Packed Lunch (C4), Alison Hammond's performance and more in I Can. See Your Voice and Married at First Sight UK (C4).
Obviously it wasn't all bad. Personally, I was delighted that BBC1's excellent drama Time won two awards, and relaxed at the fact that Channel 4's overrated It's A Sin got nothing.
While it could never stop the dress-up box community from attacking the government's plan to privatize Channel 4 or conjuring up fantasy images of a long-lost network that, according to actress Cathy Tyson, still “gives a voice to the unheard” .
As was so perfectly demonstrated by a big announcement the next day.
“Katie Price has landed a second series of her Channel 4 home renovation show, Mucky Mansion.”
TELLY quiz. Which typically “high-end” ITVBe production featured the following quote earlier this month? “There are 40 mice who have 80 s**ts a day. I'm no Carol Vorderman, but there are like 800 s**ts in my loft.”
A) Ferne McCann: First time mother?
B) Anne Frank's diary?
Instead of going through the tired old rigmarole of giving Gordon Ramsay's Future Food Stars a 200-word kick, here's a photo and subtitle that will save me the trouble.
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GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Eurovision preliminary round, Rylan: “This is what you need to start a semi-final. Albania.” (She is not)
Big Zuu's Big Eats: “I'm London Hughes and I'm really funny.”
Open House, voice-over: “In a luxurious retreat, people rebel against thousands of years of tradition by opening up their monogamous relationships in a safe house.” Or simply surrender their dignity to Channel 4 – you decide.
If London Hughes married the Big Eats host and became London Zuu, wouldn't she still be funny?
LOOKALYK OF THE WEEK
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Emailed by Fab Flo.
GREAT SPORTING INSIGHTS
SIR Jeff Stelling: “Bristol Rovers need seven goals. They are 4-0 up, so four more would be unthinkable.”
Glenn Murray: “An afternoon like tonight is so special.”
Clinton Morrison: “I bet next season will be a different season.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV GOLD
BBC2's Commando: Britain's Ocean Warriors. ITV is the 1% club.
The frenzied accordions of Moldova steal the show on Tuesday during the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, on BBC3.
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And the best show of the year, Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty, which ends with the news that a second series will be released at about the same time as the first is ignored at the 2023 Baftas.
Or as Dr. John C. Reilly’s Buss character said: “Swan songs? This isn't mine.
“Watch me paddle, you motherfuckers.”