Visiting the Families over Christmas

Can you believe that another Christmas has come and gone already?

It was a busy one, but like a lot of my presents the television available was wrapped up nice, and looked great, but after opening, they were a bit of a disappointment.

Take my trip to see my old television friends Gavin & Stacey on Christmas Eve. The couple had promised me an enjoyable evening full of surprises and revelations, but in the end delivered little we hadn’t seen already. The shock announcement promised in all of the trailers was let out of the bag in the first five minutes of the encounter, and wasn’t that shocking!

Viewers were also promised an insight into what happened on that fishing trip. Sadly it never arrived, they teased us with it, but in the end the conversation was cut short, and viewers know no more then we did before.

It wasn’t all disappointment though, there were some laughs and the script was written in the usual Gavin and Stacey style where all the best lines are given to Nessa, Bryn and Smithy, but after all the anticipation  I was left feeling slightly disappointed with my trip to Essex.

Saying that, the trip to Essex was not as disappointing as my trip to visit the Royles. After an absence of two years on my screen, I was really looking forward to seeing The Royle Family this Christmas. Sadly though my trip up north felt a bit wasted. The laughs were few and far between, and aside from the turkey ordeal, the Royle’s were just a bit boring!

Looking Forward to… Christmas with GAVIN & STACEY

The fact that this could be the last time we see the Anglo-Welsh couple Gavin and Stacey on our televisions gives even more reason to watch this festive helping of the best romantic comedy on English television.

Personally, I am more interested in seeing how much turkey Smithy can eat, hearing one of Nessa’s Xmas anecdotes and finally finding out what went on during Bren’s infamous fishing trip. Then there is the news that the show’s namesakes Gavin and Stacey will reveal a revelation that will shock Pam and Smithy providing them with a Christmas present that they didn’t really want.

If the Christmas special is up to the quality that the first two series then viewers should be in for a very festive treat!

The Gavin & Stacey Christmas special is on BBC1 andBBC HD Christmas Eve at 22:00 (10pm). And for the real Gavin and Stacey fans out there, a “Making of…” special can be seen Christmas day on BBC3 at 23:30.

The BBC’s Christmas Line-up

Coniferous trees around the world are getting worried, kiddies are getting excited and we are all getting poorer – it must mean Christmas upon us.

The holiday television schedule for me has always been pretty much a microcosm of the entire holiday experience. It comes with lots of hype and pretty packaging, but when you tear it open, many of the presents that looked most appealing turn out just to be a bit daft! Still year after year I get excited, and year after year I hope that this year will be better than the last… which is why I am still kind of excited by some of the programs coming this Christmas to the BBC.

Highlights of the BBC Christmas schedule include:

 

New episodes of some of your favourites including:

• Gavin and Stacey
  
• Doctor Who
  
• The Royle Family
  
• Strictly Come Dancing
  
• My Family
  
• Top Gear
  
• Lead Balloon
  

As well Christmas will see the return of Top of the Pops for a couple of Christmas specials, and Alan
Davies will be reprising his role in Jonathan Creek.

In addition there is some new drama coming to the Beeb in the form of The 39 Steps starring Rupert Penry Jones, which looks promising.

Film fans should be happy on the BBC with their choice of films, but there is nothing really in their seasonal line-up that anyone who owns a DVD player has probably not already seen.

The biggest highlight for me though has to be the return of Wallace and Gromit to the small screen in a new animated special A Matter of Loaf and Death, which for me will be the one show I absolutely will not miss!

More information about these programmes and others will be reported as soon as I gather it…

Gavin and Stacey… some choice scenes.

The second season of Gavin and Stacey is over now, and we are only a couple of Christmas specials away from waving goodbye to them forever (or at least that is the rumour).

So to celebrate the passing of series two, and to whet our appetites until Christmas when Gav, Stacey, Nessa, Smithy and Uncle Bryn grace our screens again, I shall search the web for some choice scenes.

The first is this gem… the corn on the cob love scene.

The second gem is this great scene… what does that sign say?

And this scene… “stop calling it a honeymoon!”

Gavin and Stacey – ep 3

The thing that makes Gavin and Stacey so watchable is the wonderful dialogue. Last night’s episode had some great lines but among the funniest was the conversation when Smithy was telling Gavin about breaking up with his girlfriend and the distress that he is in;

“I’ve been thinking about ending it all… suicide!”

“What?”

“How many Nurofren would I need to finish me off?”

Gavin looks at Smithy’s fat face. “You… you’d need hundreds!”

*sigh* “I can’t afford that can I? Not if I’m gonna have a holiday this year.”

Fantastic stuff…. and here is a great scene from episode 2.

Gavin and Stacey… back on the radar

With so much shit on television, and me being a junkie for the good stuff (TV related) I hate when a great show, slips under the radar, and I don’t hear about it until the second series begins, or until it ends.

Simon Pegg’s wonderful show, Spaced completely slipped through my TV radar systems. Thank God some wise man decided to put TV shows on DVD, or I may had never seen the adventures of Tim, Daisy and Mike. Luckily I caught Gavin and Stacey at the start of series two before it to became just another entry on my LoveFilm.com waiting list (though that is where series on currently sits).

Gavin and Stacey is truly a wonderful show, labelled a sit-com and for some reason stuck in the schedules of lowly BBC3 (the reason I missed series one. Who watches BBC3 on a regular basis?) this show is a rarity in TV-land… for it is actually funny. Yet Gavin and Stacey is so much more then just a sit-com, it also has a compelling story.

Based around the love affair of the two title characters, now newlyweds, Gavin and Stacey is a wonderful example of how great story telling can be funny. The laughs come mainly from the Welsh girl, meets Essex-boy, clash of cultures which are truly brought to life by the shows supporting characters, who are the most watchable and the funniest throughout the show. Uncle Bryn, played by the fantastic Rob Brydon kept me in stitches with his keenly observed discoveries in Essex. “I only ever been through a drive-thru once in my life. Who could have thought you could eat a meal in your car. It was just like being in America.”

It is truly a show that much be watched. A sit-com that is not a sit-com, so the show’s writers tell us… it is just a story that is ultimately funny. I just hope that the rest of the series is as good as the first two episodes that aired last night, because I truly am in love with Gavin and Stacey… but I am horrified about what will happen to the show when the Americans who have bought the rights to produce an “American” version are done with it (Men Behaving Badly anyone???).