Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E16, or If Only We Had Lettuce and Tomato!

Seasonal Code: S16E16
Production Number: 356
CW Seasonal Code: S16E06

The last quarter of Season 16 is inundated with Jeff Davis episodes, and they’re all very strong shows. We return to the Jeff S15 taping that’s given us some good stuff so far, including an excellent show to start the season with. This show has some nice changes of pace, which is always welcome.

Dating App: Jeff must choose from:
Wayne – Has a secret identity, the superhero ‘Angry Grandma’
Colin – Hannibal Lecter trying to find another body that tastes as good as his own
Ryan – Zombie gathering an army of the undead to take over the studio

There is something extremely funny about Wayne doing a full on superhero intro, with seeing the signal, going down the batpole, suiting up and just shifting to:

Wayne is excellent at nailing physical gags, and this is no exception

The quirk itself is par for the course for Wayne, though I do like him humming a theme song and throwing in the occasional word, like ‘OCTEGENARIAN’

Wayne is already bracing himself as Colin comes towards him, and sure enough:

Colin times this really well. Licks Wayne, licks self, licks Wayne again. Trying to compare the two.

And, of course:

I actually prefer the standoff they have for about 5 seconds after Colin’s done with Ryan:

Ryan’s is the goofiest of the three, because he just skulks around…grabbing the occasional audience member…then getting them to operate the camera. And eventually:


[BUZZES]
I think my favorite part of this is Aisha’s zombie mumbling as she returns to the desk, mainly because she sounds like Whoopi Goldberg

I love that right before Aisha hands it to Jeff, we cut to Ryan and he’s just…

Colin’s more amused than anything, really. He just shrugs and goes back into it:

HOW DID NEITHER OF THEM BREAK?

Jeff guesses Colin correctly, but adds “that was more like Hannibal LICK-ter”
Ryan: “HOHOHOOOO…GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!”

A fine LMAD. Not…really a ton to it that felt new, but some goofy moments. Getting a Ryan-Colin lick-off did feel like the ending of the ‘ravenous boa constrictor’ LMAD we never got, though.

Doo-Wop: Jeff, Ryan and Colin sing about Ruby, who died tragically in a seafood accident

No Wayne? No Wayne.

Wayne does get to laugh at the confusing way Aisha says the title of the game, something like ‘DOOOOOOOOOOOWWAAAHHHHP’.

Gotta say, Aisha’s delivery on both ‘Ruuuuuuuby’ and “…IN A SEAFOOD ACCIDENT” throw the performers. There’s just something in the air on this one

Hell, the second Jeff starts the song, you can see he’s on the fringes of breaking just looking at Ryan and Colin. There’s just this goofy atmosphere at this point.

Jeff and Ryan’s verses are easy, but it’s worth noting how easy leading the game comes to Jeff.

Colin: “Oh Ruby, you were my little oyster
Just thinking of you makes me a little bit moister.”
THAT alone is funny
“You died eating crabs, that was your wish
It was so like you, you were so SHELLFISH”
PFFF. Okay, that one works

Wayne, I think, considered himself lucky he wasn’t in the firing line for this one, but Colin looks right at him doing his ‘bububub’s at the end and he falls over in the back.

Jeff has a strong ending line: “you’re like a dead tuna, and for the rest of your days
I will mix you wish mayonnaise.”
Hell, the three of them make the note work as well.

Pretty strong Doo-Wop, especially for a different grouping. Lot of little things worked for me in this one.

Forward Rewind: Wayne and Colin are two firemen responding to a fire at a farm, Ryan’s the panicking farmer desperately trying to save his animals, Jeff is Ryan’s lusty daughter who bursts out of the burning farmhouse

Furthering my point about the goofy atmosphere in the studio. After Aisha plays in the ‘forward’ and ‘rewind’ SFX, Wayne and Colin do this sort of dangly-armed running together, which is a direct callback to Wayne’s movements from that taping’s Weird Newscasters, which probably taped right before this game.

Aisha, reading the card: “Jeff is Ryan’s lusty daughter-LUSTY. That’s gonna go great..”

From the jump, there’s a fun clumsiness here. Wayne and Colin start the scene asleep, then Colin goes “the fire alarm went off”, then repeats it, cracking a little, as they jump into action

I feel like Wayne and Colin getting into their gear are just…patiently waiting for Aisha to call ‘rewind’, and it doesn’t happen.

Luckily, once Wayne and Colin are moving about the stage on the truck, then Aisha calls rewind, and they get to do that motion a few times.

Ryan has a very funny entering line: “MAH PIG DONE DIED, SHE DON’T SQUEAL NO MORE.”
I laughed at him doing that line 2 more times thanks to Aisha’s calling.
I also laughed at the eventual response to that line from Colin, “if only we had lettuce and tomato!”
PFFFF

And then we get the Ryan line two more times thanks to a rewind from Aisha. It’s just very silly that we can’t get past this part, though nowhere near TOTALLY PARTAAAAY levels.

THEN FINALLY, JEFF PRANCES IN: “LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY!”

…lol Colin.
Aisha, of course: “…REWIND.”
Jeff, backwards: “LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY”

Then, we finally get the line after that, from Ryan: “FER GOD’S SAKES, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!”

I feel like right as the scene was getting somewhere, Aisha brings it back to the top, but we do get to see Jeff going ‘LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY’ one more time, as well as a funnier rendition of Ryan’s ‘PUT SOME CLOTHES ON’ line

Colin also manages to get the line wrong: “if only we had…bacon and lettuce.”
WE ALREADY HAVE THE BACON

I laughed at Colin trying to add in one more laugh line about how he only sleeps standing up, then realizing it’d defeat the purpose of the scene and just falling asleep.

And then after the buzz, Jeff prances back to the seats. What a goofy fun time that was. I really wish the scene had progressed a tad more, but Aisha knew that the hook was in replaying lines and keeping us with Jeff and Ryan, and Jeff going ‘LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY’ is an extremely silly hook. Not my absolute favorite CW Forward Rewind [ANTONIO! NOOOOO] but a favorite of mine for the silliness.

Aisha takes aim at Jeff’s “very literal” interpretation of ‘lusty’
Jeff: “I…’lust for life’?”

Scenes from a Hat:

You can see Wayne and Ryan doing the digging motions from ‘I’m Shipping My Love to You’ from 16×01.

“If famous movie scenes were performed on too much caffeine.”
I really liked Ryan’s interpretation of Moses parting the red sea in 10 seconds, mostly because we never see The Ten Commandments in these types of scenes. I also love Ryan finishing with an “OH STOOOPP”

Then Ryan does an ‘ET’S GOTTA GO HOME’ one that makes me think he mistook the scene for ‘too much cocaine’

Colin: [walks up]
Wayne, passing in front of the camera: “…butyouCAN’TTAKEMYFREEDOOOoooomm…”
Colin:

He’s BAFFLED. He’s cracking up as he walks back. Wayne flings himself back across the camera shot like an excited muppet.

Colin, even keel: “…captain, the dilithium crystals are going to blow….’ see, it had an opposite effect on Scotty.”
PFFF

“What Star Wars characters say while making love”
Wayne, perhaps an episode early, does one as Mr. Jar-Jar Binks. Somehow no one comes down to snap his neck.

Ryan: [takes drag of cigarette] “I’m your father, Luke..”
PFFF

Jeff, as Admiral Ackbar: “oh no…IT’S A CLAP.”
PFFF. That got me my first watch, and it got me here. You can see Jeff’s lips curling as he sells it.

Wayne: [Darth Vader breathing] “that’ll be another 2.99 for the next-”
I like that one a lot too

“What superheroes do when they think they’re alone.”
Ryan: [uses web-shooters to grab a beer]

“World’s worst thing to say to a bride on her wedding day.”
Colin, lifting the veil: “Oh SWEET LORD.”

Had a few moments above ‘perfunctory’ but not wall-to-wall substantial.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Car

Ryan starts out with a segue about sleeping in his car, when it’s parked in the garage [“like garage rock”]
Colin: “…you sleep in your car when it’s parked in the garage??”
Ryan, a la Fred Willard: “THAT’S RIGHT.”
Colin: “which I’m guessing is attached to your HOUSE.”
Ryan: “I can’t go inside, the wife’s having an affair..”

I actually really like Wayne and Jeff’s garage rock song, Beep Beep Snore Snore, because Laura and Linda give it the crunchy guitar groove it deserves, and Jeff aligns the verses along it perfectly for the genre.

They’re able to get such a powerful and cool song done in a minute, that you literally see Aisha go “wow” the second the song ends.

Wayne and Jeff’s reaction to the next style being ‘greek wedding’:

Colin’s:

Ryan: “I dunno if you’ve ever been to a greek wedding, the bride doesn’t actually wear a gown, she’s just wrapped in grape leaves”
COLIN:

The banter stuff is subtler this episode but it’s working

The silly atmosphere strikes once more, as Ryan stumbles and says ‘tarp of the charts-TOP, or tarp..”

Colin: “I can see why the phones aren’t ringing..”
Ryan: “they never should have legalized it in California..”

I love, as the Zorba the Greek music starts, Jeff rushing into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief and finding the next best thing, a folded up piece of paper from…something.

I like Wayne throwing in the line ‘walking to the gas station not good in certain neighborhoods..”
Jeff: “well if you wanted/to drive more far
You should have got a prius or a TES-LA-CAR.”

Jeff, as the speed picks up: “if you kill the environment then I will kick your ass..”

The number ends with Jeff and Wayne dancing around, Wayne cracking up, and Jeff clutching his ribs and going “I’M out of gas too…”

A solid GH. I think it was funnier than last show’s, and had more emphasis on banter, though equally impressive in terms of musicianship. Jeff also took more of a lead on these songs, and the quality was pretty high on both. I think I remember more laughs from the other two GH songs, but these were fun too.

Overall: The things I liked about this show owed more to the really goofy environment and energy than to many individual games. There were games I liked in this, like Doo-Wop, Greatest Hits and Forward/Rewind, but there were issues with a couple of them. I’m just more happy that something like Forward/Rewind exists in this episode than anything. But honestly, this is a show I don’t have a ton to say about because the only real standout game is Greatest Hits, and even then I can name better playings of it from this season. I enjoyed this one, but I can see why I wasn’t wild about it when it went out.

Show Winners: All four
Best Performer: Jeff Bryan Davis, who seemed integral to every game and was responsible for the show’s best moments [leading Doo-Wop, Lusty x3, taking the lead in Greatest Hits, Admiral Ackbar]
Worst Performer: I hate to do this for the second show in a row, but Wayne was more deferential than the others tonight, and showed more signs of wear [especially in GH].
Best Game: Greatest Hits, cause it was the most substantial.
Worst Game: Not an opinion I thought I’d have going in, but Dating App. It felt like a lot of it had been done before, and better, and didn’t have many laughs. Which stinks, cause I remember liking that one the first time around.

COMING UP NEXT: One last trip into the archives with another Jeff show. This one’s pretty special, though.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E15, or It’s a Musical Riddle!

Seasonal Code: S16E15
Production Number: 350
CW Seasonal Code: S15E20

I feel like my hiatuses for this project have been more frequent lately, and so I’m less prone to apologize for them, but this one was particularly abrupt and took me far too long to get back to. Basically, I’ve been a lot busier the past several months, there’s been several projects I’ve been prioritizing, and this one’s fallen to the wayside a bit. But seeing as I have a bit of time, I might as well get to another S16 show. Especially this one, because I’ve been waiting to talk about this one for a while.

According to the CW, this is the last of the S15 leftovers, the last of the ones that aired overseas before it hit America. There was a long wait for this one, a Brad guestless show from the S13 taping, and we who had seen it were worried it was due to something that happened in Film Dub. We were sort of right.

Questions: At a Wedding

I like the scene-quality of Wayne and Brad’s first go-round
Brad, in a dog hat: “Can I have just two minutes with your leg?”

I like Ryan, entering in a pope hat, using a very silly Italian accent, like a gangster film, and going ‘ey, you got a smoke-y?”
Wayne takes a moment to take that character choice in and walks off

Colin, I think, saw this hat and had to jump on it:
Colin: “Ready to try the other white meat?”
For the first of two times, I can sense an audience reaction that’s a mix of laughter and outrage. You can hear one guy going ‘OHHHH’ loudly.
Ryan, to his credit, just walks off shaking his head.

Brad brings this back to scene work and sets up a concept, with Colin, of several different men at this wedding dressed as food [“is he fooling around with the hashbrowns?”]. I like that Brad knows that this game works when it feels like a scene and it’s less of a back-and-forth with pick-up lines. There is something very cute about the moment Colin challenges Brad, and Brad just chuckles and walks off.

Ryan, in a basketball hat: “am I dribbling?” [licks his lips like 50 times]
Colin, with my favorite no-sell yet, just looks Ryan over, goes ‘yeah’, as in ‘yeah, that’s what you’re doing’, and leaves.

Wayne, in a skeleton mask: “after the wedding, would you like to bone?”
RYAN, STEPPING BACK ABOUT A MILE:
Ryan has a moment where he realizes an easy lay-up, and he didn’t think he’s have one. You see him do the math and go ‘huh’: “Can you handle my ball?”
Wayne, thinking of one that isn’t as good and cracking up as he hands the mask to Ryan: “would you like some head..”
Ryan: [wilts]
They’re just standing there awkwardly as the joke sort of dissolves.
Wayne looks right at Aisha and goes “BUZZ.” So she does.

Colin: [enters in an angry ant mask]
Ryan: [IMMEDIATELY EXITS]
PFFFF
Colin: [throws out his hands, as if to say ‘what??’]

A goofy Questions. Maybe not an over-the-top classic, as only one of them was really trying to flesh out a scene here, but there were some fun moments.

Film Dub: One day in the spa

This one, the International cut is the fuller version. If you’re watching this on Max, you miss a key moment or so.

Ryan starts out doing this Terry Thomas style British accent, sort of mumbling about [“MMI SHOULDN’T BE SMOKING, PROBABLY, mmgheei’m in a spa…”]

I think they’re already finding the silly hook of the scene when Ryan suggests the others check if the sauna’s enough, and Colin’s character looks through a device to see a volcanic eruption.
Colin: “…seems a little hot..”

Something that makes me think this was a pickups playing is Colin using his character’s continued speaking to just repeat his line a bunch more times. [“Well, WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?”]

This does get funnier when Wayne’s character enters in a facial cast, incoherently mumbling
Ryan: “how did the facial peel go, Sylvia?…I hope everything turned out alri..ght..”
You can see Ryan cracking a bit as the scene goes on, cause he’s still trying to figure out the hook

I did laugh at Wayne, as his character exits, going, very muffled, “I’ll see you again at 7:00, simply mahhvelous…”
Then Wayne’s other character, a blonde who’s been there all scene, finally speaks, and Wayne gives her the voice of a black woman: “…what the hell happened to her face?”
I like that choice, it comes out of nowhere

Ryan, whose character is on a gurney: “Look, I’m going to lie here, would someone please give me a Brazilian?”
PFFF

Then, Ryan calls for a policeman, and a new character in A FULL NAZI UNIFORM ARRIVES. Brad, who hasn’t had a character yet, jumps into action, giving the character a very goofy ‘HALLO’.
Ryan, barely in character: “well, this really took a turn for the worse, didn’t it?”
Brad, as his character exits with Wayne’s, figures he should make the most of this: “I’M HERE TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS SHOW, you can hear an audience member go ‘OHHHH’, audibly against that joke, but enough people laugh at it. And for someone who only really had 2 lines in that scene, Brad really made the most of it. Because jeeeeez does that line make this game.

Ryan, back at the seats: “Wow, that guy came outta NOWHERE. Nice little spa scene?”
Wayne: ‘a nice alt-right massage..”
Aisha: “comedy just really took a hard left turn at the end there..’
Colin: “Actually it took a far right turn..”

To give you an idea, the CW version splices in laughter after ‘this really took a turn for the worse’, and rides out the game on the punchline of ‘random Nazi’, rather than the Trump joke. So the CW apparently didn’t allow Angst to deliver the Trump joke to US audiences, perhaps considering that this was summer 2020 and Trump was up for reelection, and the CW’s run by cowards. This would explain why this was the last of the international early releases to air, because the CW probably made Angst go back and reedit it instead of airing it when it was supposed to go out.

I completely agree with Angst, there’s no reason to censor that, it should have gone out. Lumping in fascism with the MAGA movement is not uncalled for, and judging by both what had happened in Charlottesville years earlier and what happened at the Capital months later, the ideals of both groups are very much intermixed. Also, it’s a joke meant for American audiences, so giving it to every international audience save for the one it’s intended for is kind of backwards.

This film dub is decent enough, but it gets better midway through and ends strongly. I just think it took them a while to figure out what the game actually ‘was’.

Props: Ryan & Brad vs. Colin & Wayne

You can see Ryan trying to subvert an old classic- Brad does a wrestling promo gag with the props as belts, saying ‘I’m gonna take that from you’, and Ryan just goes “OKAY.”

Colin: “should I worry about this blood in my urine?”

[THIRD vehement audience protest reaction of the show]
Wayne: “I’d worry about the fact that it’s FROZEN blood in your urine..”

Wayne, German accent: “hello, and velcome to our Minimalist Christmas special.”
Colin: “…WE WISH YOU……”
Wayne: “…We wish you.”

Ryan and Brad have some classics, but are selling them like old pros. There’s a bear trap one that they both make work. And then:

Ryan, fumbling: “I’ll tell you what, I think that snake ate our pig..”
Brad: [crumbles]

Decent Props round. A few ideas that stood out, but a short runtime and a lot of old standards pushed this back down.

Sound Effects: Ryan and Colin are two cops patrolling a zoo when they get orders to head downtown to combat a zombie invasion

The only non-all-four game in the show.

Katie’s first sound effect is a siren noise, which Colin uses as his ringtone. He answers…and then Katie clearly doesn’t know what to do. You can see Colin looking over to her, helplessly.
Katie finally gives a sound, which is a four-note ‘bom bom bom bom’, which honestly sounded like the opening line of Do They Know It’s Christmas.
Colin: “…it’s a musical riddle!”
PFF

I think I’ve figured out one of my favorite Sound Effects tropes. When Colin and Ryan discuss the premise of a scene, and the audience members respond to that with sounds thinking they’re talking about something in front of them. And then Colin and Ryan responding to that with ‘oh, there it is now’. It happens here, where Colin and Ryan talk about the possibility of a zombie attack, Julia and Katie respond with zombie noises, and Colin just goes “oh yeah, there’s some over there..”
Katie throws in a throaty scream that she’s even confused by
Colin: “…RIGHT BY THE HYENAS”

This scene eventually mellows into a hook of Colin and Ryan suggesting animal noises and being underwhelmed by the meek volume Katie and Julia go with. Lions, elephants, all just not what they want.
The thing is, I think they KNOW the hook is for them to be small. Ryan even goes ‘I’m gonna use this conch to call all the animals’, and Julia responds with a very tiny ‘waaaaa’. Ryan responds to that by just spitting out whatever animal he just blew into, and I love that move
Colin: “ALRIGHT, WE HAVE ONE CAT.”
As we’ve established, that’s enough sometimes.
Ryan: “I blew a snail outta there..”
Colin, choosing this moment to appeal directly to Ryan: “boy, ya don’t hear THAT everyday…”

I like Ryan’s move of responding to Colin’s gunfire with “sorry, that was my shotgun”, and having to quickly sew Colin up

Then, after the car doors don’t work, and Ryan has Julia do a siren that’s a delayed cat noise
Ryan: “……WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OUR CAR??”

You can tell they’re having a tough time, because Ryan has to diagram exactly how the next gag, involving a flare gun, is going to work, and hopes the audience members will listen. “Then you throw your grenade, I dunno what’s gonna happen there..”
Colin, smirkingly: “I got a hundred bucks that says you don’t get past the flare.”

Ryan: [fires]
Julia: “….pew!”
Ryan: [hands over 100 dollar bill]

I did like the ending, where the grenade explodes in Colin’s hand and he draws back in shock. Always funny to end a scene with silly violence [reminded me of Niall Ashdown ending Improbable Mission with the squeezy bottle bomb attacking him]

Another ‘the audience members can’t do it as well as we thought’ playing, and those vary in mileage for me. This did have some fun moments [the bet, the conch gag] but a lot of it was just Colin and Ryan airing out their frustrations, and we’ve had more of those than not in the CW.

Ryan: “every sound was some kind of cat, except the lions, oddly enough. The lions sounded like a shotgun.”

Scenes from a Hat:

“Unlikely names for candy bars”
Colin, too excited: “TURD Melt..”
Ryan, reading the label: “Oh! Henry..OH…OHHH HENRY…OH YOU’RE THE KING HEN-” [gives up]
PFFF. The kids won’t get it but I did

“Bad times to be caught fooling around with someone”
Wayne’s wedding scene with Colin and Brad is almost a ‘Colin and Ryan walking around in the middle of Wayne’s wedding toast’ type of ‘this really got away from me’ scene. First, as Wayne’s orchestrating the I Do’s for Colin and Brad, he names Brad’s character Ricardo, and isn’t prepared for Brad to answer ‘si’. Then the ‘fooling around’ Wayne was thinking of becomes just a slight touch below the belt, and it slowly turns into all three performers tickling each other, which is way sillier than Wayne intended. I love every second of it though

“If Vegas Magicians did regular jobs” causes a unique conundrum. Ryan immediately shakes his head, and Aisha points out that he’s got nothing. Brad, meanwhile, is FROM Vegas, so he’s got a bunch. But Wayne’s just talking over it as Brad goes to do his, saying “I’m just trying to not do a dick joke right now.”
Aisha: “WHEN HAVE YOU EVER TRIED-”
Brad, who was setting up, sees they’re going at it, and goes, “oh, SORRY,” and abandons the gag. Very much a Mock the Week-esque banter over gags moment.

Ryan does eventually try one, as a dentist that does a ‘stick into the lion’s mouth’ act, and this cracks Ryan up

Also, you can see Colin shaking his head right when he figures out where Aisha’s going with her barber joke [‘POOF, IT’S GONE!’]

Again, moments of substantial quality but a lot of ‘been there done that’. Also, I wish Brad had gotten more moments to be onstage, and one of his few suggestions was blocked by Aisha.

Greatest Hits: Songs of Backpacking

Ryan does an ill-advised ‘rap’ segue, and Colin wonderfully no-sells it by wiping the spit from his eye.

I also love Colin injuring his shoulder doing the ‘hands on shoulders’ rap pose on the throw to Wayne and Brad. Wayne seems to enjoy this as well.

Note that the backing by Laura and Linda is pretty similar to California Love by Tupac and Dr. Dre, which is pretty cool. Wayne even uses this as a way of doing his opening line, “I wanna welcome everybody to the forest”

To that point, Brad is very good at replicating the chorus of California Love with the “THERE’S A KILLLAAAAH ON THE LOOSE”, and it actually fits with the tone of rap from this era.

The song actually gets to a fun place between Wayne and Brad, as Brad details the contents of his trail mix, and Wayne responds “there’s a killer on the loose, you’re talking ’bout food?”

I like that the song ends with Wayne camoflaging off under the piano, as he’s convinced he’ll die first if the killer shows up. Meaning Brad has to end the song along.
Brad: “there’s a killahhh..”
Wayne, from under the piano: “BANG.”
Brad: ‘…..ya missed me.”
Aisha’s howling at this. Brad just keeps looking to Laura and Aisha for somebody to end the song, and eventually someone does.

Colin and Ryan have some good banter in the opera leadup, as Colin makes up the name of an Opera [“bolamohooo..”], which confuses Ryan.
Ryan: “just sounds like you’re making this shit up..”

In the opera song, I actually like Wayne’s verse, even if his patter owes itself more to Broadway than pure Opera, he’s still excellent at singing it. Even funnier that the song is about eating bark, with lyrics like “it tastes like candy, put it in your mouth, you might have a harder time…passing it out..”

I like the twist where Wayne decides it’s just easier to just kill Brad, and takes out a knife and starts stabbing him.
Brad, bringing it back: “THERE’S A KILLER…”
Wayne loves this, laughing as he completes “ON THE LOOSE.”

Excellent opera number, though. Terrific musicianship and some funny lines, as well as a great callback. And a nice capper on a pretty strong Greatest Hits, boosted by Wayne and Brad not only doing great songs but doing funny things in them. It’s a boost of improv energy that more of this show needed.

Overall: A lot of limp, anemic games with maybe one or two amusing moments, polished off by an excellent Greatest Hits. I know that this show gets flak for overusing Greatest Hits, but when it’s the only inspired game in the whole show, maybe they shouldn’t? This show was stocked with a lot of quickfire rounds, and a scene game that was weighed down by audience members that couldn’t deliver. There’s games I enjoyed in this, like Film Dub and parts of Sound Effects, but no wall-to-wall triumphs here, even with a much better Greatest Hits. This show felt like it was a lot of ‘this was left’ material that could fit in a 22 minute show. And in fairness, I get that they need content, but I just wish there was a little more to this one. And a bit more for Brad to do other than rock Greatest Hits.

Show Winners: Brad and Wayne
Best Performer: Very tight between Colin and Ryan all night. I think I am gonna give it to Ryan, as his edge in several games sort of dictated the direction of the show.
Worst Performer: Y’see, here’s the thing. Brad WAS utilized the least this show, but in two of the games tonight I can point to his contributions as one of the most important to the game’s success. Wayne had more moments tonight where the joke got away from him, and more moments where he deferred, so I’m honestly giving this to him.
Best Game: Greatest Hits, cause it seemed to be the only one to do something new tonight.
Worst Game: Props, which came and went without doing much.
Should it have aired in S13?: Nah, I see why it was relegated to here.

COMING UP NEXT: You know what we haven’t had in a while? A Jeff episode. We go back to his S15 taping next, and we bring back a game that hasn’t been played since aroooound S10.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E10, or It Better Not be Rose West

Despite being busy with various other projects, not prioritizing the blog as much as I should be, and falling so behind on Buzzcocks that the wikipedia admin probably thought I was ill, I figured it was a good idea to finish this season of Buzzcocks before the year was out.

By and large, I enjoyed this season. There was definitely a lot of high points, like the return of Paloma Faith, Billy Porter having a ball, Daisy learning that the trick to ID Parade is including a vulgar anecdote about herself, and Gregory Porter delighting everybody. There’s a lot of the same issues I’ve always had with new Buzzcocks, but there seems to be more of a desire to bring back people from the original version and let them take the reins. Maybe this leads to Bill and Phill returning for a spell in the future, though probably not.

This final episode of the series, which is, as usual, a CHRIIIIISTMAAAAAAS episode, has a pretty strong panel, even for the reboot’s standards. I know everybody on it pretty much- I mean, I don’t know Leigh-Anne that well, but a member of Little Mix certainly rings a bill. Harry Hill of course I’m aware of, and it’s always amusing to see him doing non-kids-show stuff. And Ricky Wilson hasn’t been on since the Kaiser Chiefs’ heyday, during which he did two exceptional shows and made a name for himself as a loose, relaxed presence. I bet he’s still similar.

Greg starts this one with a very amusing cold open, with a sinister tale of Michael Buble being corrupted into doing one more Xmas album. I think Greg absolutely gets the cynicism and star-bashing that Buzzcocks stood for, and he’s certainly been one of the reboot’s best aspects.

Harry rolls off a traditional Christmas one-liner. “My dad died at Christmas, it was during a game of Charades, it took us 40 minutes to figure out what was going on.”
[Unfortunately some of his follow-up lines belabor the point, but he’s in a jolly mood, as usual]

Greg surmises that Noel’s Christmas is like “some awful Tim Burton film”
Jamali: “hey, Noel don’t eat turkey, he eats BATS”

Greg mentions that Daisy and Ricky did a series of Masked Singer together, and Greg brings up that Daisy used to say that he fancied Ricky in costume more than out of it:

I wish Daisy would have had a chance to work off that, but…she’s just not great at that apparently

Jamali gets himself on the wrong side of the audience after he suggests Leigh-Anne tell her two-year old kids that Santa’s not real. I love that Greg tries to keep the illusion going, and then as the audience boos Jamali, he just goes ‘fuck off!”

Greg asks what Noddy Holder Christmas debauchery story is true, and might I add that I adore Greg’s way of describing Noddy as ‘screaming weetabix’:

Greg barely gets through A without cracking, and then B involves him to do his best approximation of a Birmingham accent. Knowing what Noddy actually sounds like, Greg did a decent enough job.
Also, I think it’s B.

Noel, justifying why he thinks it’s C, cracks at his own logic: “he’s got a special saddle for his pigs, that he’s fashioned out of his sideburns..”

Greg eve mentions that Noddy’s a sausage aficionado. “Sausages are like Noddy’s children…in that nobody would like to see them being made.”
PFFFFF

Greg asks the teams why Slade fired their bassist
Harry: “stole the Christmas club money”
Greg: “MUCH worse”
Noel: “HOW MUCH WORSE? What, he killed a priest?”
JESUS. Noel’s having a surprisingly nice night so far

Harry, trying again: “winged a toddler on a zebra crossing?”
Good lord. Also, sidenote, HOW HAS HARRY HILL NOT DONE A QI??

Greg reveals that said bassist, Dave Glover, apparently nearly married Rose West
Jamali, perfectly: “to be fair, she always supports her husband..”

Daisy: “when I was working at Waitrose, somebody spread a rumor that I was a man..”
Harry: “what, in the in-house Waitrose magazine?”
PFFF. I really like how Harry thinks

Daisy continues that this rumor ruined her shot at snogging a co-worker at the Christmas party. “I can’t snog you, cause apparently you’re a man..”
Greg, hitting a Buble button: “…HOLLY, JOLLY CHRISTMAS..”

On a whim from Leigh-Anne, Noel’s team randomly jumps to A after being around B for a lot of it, and it turns out that this was the correct move.

So Greg plays in a McCartney clip, and notes that they were gonna play in John Lennon’s Happy Xmas, but Yoko Ono denied them the rights. “What’s your fucking problem, Ono? It’s CHRISTMAS! Ya couldn’t just take the 20 quid and let us play the song? YOKO ONO…Yoko NO-NO.”
As silly as this is, what is Yoko’s deal? It’s well-reported that had John lived, he’d have just hosted an ill-fated guest-era Buzzcocks episode anyhow, much akin to Bruce Forsyth’s HIGNFY episode.

On a Christmas gift John got for a celebrity friend:

I genuinely think it’s C. I feel like I’d have heard it if John Travolta was tight with Lennon.

Daisy says her granddad “gave me his old razor with bits of old men’s flesh in ’em.”
Greg: “he’d heard the rumors of you bein’ a bloke..”

Harry has excellent logic in ruling out C and B, especially bringing up the logistics between setting up a cross-country pong session over the phone.
Greg: “we’re into the third series of this, it’s the first time anyone has used genuine deduction.”

Greg, as it’s A, describes Lennon’s account of the buglike aliens that came into his house and left a space egg, “and FINALLY, we can end the debate, ‘were the Beatles on drugs?'”

So there’s a spin on Intros this episode: if the teams’ attempts are too godawful, they can pick from a number of mystery guests to perform them.

Leigh-Anne and Jamali’s first one is a pretty sweet and simple rendition of Jingle Bell Rock. I love the moment that Jamali ends it with a ‘FWWOOOUM’, and a lone audience member cheers for it.
Jamali:

Noel: “…yeah, I’m gonna have to go to the box..”
Which is funny enough
Noel: “AND IT BETTER NOT BE ROSE WEST.”

Jamali’s reaction when DJ Luck and MC Neat pop out of the first box is, as Greg describes it, “literally the only time I’ve ever seen Jamali excited about anything.”

What’s very cool is that, at the end of their rendition of Jingle Bell Rock, DJ Luck throws in a BRAPP to pay tribute to Jamali’s version.
Noel: “…that was WORSE.”
PFFF
I love how quick he is to clarify that he was joking. Apparently he doesn’t wanna get on the bad side of either DJ Luck or MC Neat

Greg mentions that the b-side to Jingle Bell Rock was “Captain Santa Claus and his Reindeer Space Patrol”. “And before you ask, yes, quaaludes mainly.”

Noel immediately throws the next intro to Box #3, which takes a beat or so before they can get out of the present.
Greg, knowing who’s in there: “…please be alright, lads..”
Noel: “NOT ENOUGH AIR!”
PFFF

Sure enough, it’s two of the Wurzels, which means Bill Bailey must be hooting and hollering at home.

Greg asks if the Wurzels have ever done a Christmas album.
Pete: “yeah”
Greg: “what’s it called?”
Tommy: “it’s, erm, somethin’ about Christmas…”
Greg: “…and there was me worried ya couldn’t fight your way out of the box.”
Greg is fighting laughs this whole bit, and i’m here for it

The Wurzels’ version isn’t very illuminating, as they throw their own ‘ooh-arr’s in there. Noel’s face when he realizes he has to guess after that is possible.
Greg: “and if ya get this, it’ll be the greatest thing you’ve ever achieved.”

Noel: “…is it Santa Tell Me? By uh, whatsername, Ariana Grande?”
Greg: “……are you joking me?”
I love Jamali’s astonished delivery of “IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, GREG!”

It’s interesting to me that, because there’s three guests, all three intros of each need to be included. Which means we’re actually getting all 3 intros for the first time since, like, the mid-2000s.

I love Jamali’s amused, impressed ‘OH SHIT’ when two members of the Blazing Squad show up in the third box. Before you ask, no, I’m not going to cross-reference whether or not they’ve been on Buzzcocks before, but I think Kenzie was the only one to make the panel [“PLEASE…LEAVE ME ALONE…”]

Ollie and Melo-D go into the intro, cracking up throughout, and a dumbfounded Noel, turning to Jamali, goes “THIS IS THE SAME SONG??”

That was somehow 2,000 Miles by The Pretenders. Again, maybe Jamali shouldn’t be doing Intros..

Kinda odd that Ricky’s receiving and Daisy’s giving, but this is the Christmas show, and the point is for the panel to be bad at intros and need the guests.

Daisy’s first intro ends with Daisy doing a high pitched “BAH-BAAAHHHH”, which even cracks her up.
Harry, importantly: “it’s not the Batman theme.”

Ricky almost immediately chooses Box 3, and Greg, obviously knowing what’s in there, asks Daisy what 90s Boy-Band she’d most like to see, and of course she answers 5ive. Sure enough, Richie and Scott from 5ive are in there; Richie was on the show way back in Series 7, on one of the ‘this is death’ episodes for me that series.
Daisy LITERALLY SCREAMS THE SECOND Richie and Scott jump out of there.

Greg: “did you know that Daisy May Cooper was, uh, well, a potential stalker?”
Scott: “not quite that much..”

Daisy does an impromptu rendition of a 5ive song they performed at the BRiTs.
Greg: “IT’S AN ADRENALINE RUSH, THIS CHRISTMAS SHOW.”
I’m glad Greg’s been there to keep bringing us back to reality

Greg points out how ridiculous it is that Scott’s main melody for their intro is this ‘DUNNNNGyeeeahhh…” It’s good Intros form, it’s just funny when you think about it like that.

Jamali, to Noel: “what’s the song with the, uh, Irish woman?”
Greg, smirking: “Jamali, I can stop you there, that isn’t it.”

It ends up being Darlene Love’s ‘Christmas [Baby Please Come Home]’, and with that knowledge I like 5ive’s version, but I don’t think any of us were thinking it’d be going to Darlene Love.

Ricky hasn’t gotten many moments to shine this moment, but I love him, realizing he’s given Noel’s team another point, sheepishly apologizing, and trying to sing along as the song fades out. He’s still really fun, there just hasn’t been much room for him so far.

Greg, of course: “that was Darlene Love with Dung Yeah.”

Greg, cracking as he says this: “let’s let [5ive] escape before Daisy can give chase!”
There’s a very stop-start quality to this show that’s running the risk of giving it a clumsy feel, but it’s still working, and it’s still doing a lot.

Harry and Daisy’s second intro is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard in a while. Not since Bill Bailey doing an intro to Barry Cryer have I been so confused by what the hell the performers are doing.
Greg: “This, ladies and gentlemen, is a NEW LOW.”

Box #1 turns out to be Paul Freaking Potts, a genuinely cool get that reminds me that James Corden, the guy who played him, has been on the show twice but Paul himself is just now getting here. What a shame that is.

Paul, smirking: “messed up my hair, man..”
Greg: “that’ll happen when you jump out of a present..”

Ricky does not get it, so Greg passes it over
Jamali, IMMEDIATELY: “…what’s that song with the irish woman?”
I LOST IT. I did not expect that to come back, and he just went into it so casually.
IT GETS GREG, TOO

It turns out it was Walking in the Air, which is kinda fitting for an opera singer, though admittedly Potts has a deeper register than Jones.

Box #3 contains three members of Bucks Fizz, including the imitable Cheryl Baker, and Mike Nolan, who nearly beat the shit out of Anne-Marie. And considering that Anne-Marie was the latest pop star to help David Guetta deface a turn-of-the-century euro-dance hit, he honestly should have.

Greg: “you are just the sweetest, you three, because we only wanted two of you, but you said ‘you can take us all or take none of us.”
Honestly, gotta admire that. Nobody’s getting left out. Not even Mike, for fear of wounding another panelist.
Mike, though: “that was my idea. They wanted the girls, not me..”
Greg: “…well, that was very strange, because I was very specific that Mike was my #1 choice..”

Jamali, of course, wants to tempt fate: “every time I see that guy I’m so happy. With the shirt and everything, he looks like a retired figure skater.”

I think Jamali knew that this needed to happen. He knows where the funny is, and it’s ‘pissing off Mike Nolan’

I was wondering if 2005-era Ricky would show up in this episode, and then midway through Cheryl, Jay and Mike’s intro he just goes “RIP OFF YER SKIRTS, GIRLS.”
THAAAT’s the ‘and it’s us four lads’ in front of lesbian cowboys Ricky Wilson we all know and love.

Ricky, to his credit, gets that it’s Step Into Christmas easily, though I feel like he knew it somewhat during the original rendition and was sort of made to get Bucks Fizz to do it, cause it’d be awkward to NOT do anything with Bucks Fizz..

Daisy’s team, for ID Parade, has to pick out members of the Fast Food Rockers, who were last on the show in Series 16 [taunting Phill]

Harry: “they’ve gotta be the same age, haven’t they?”
Greg: “I don’t think that’s a rule in the music biz.”
Ricky: “WELL…it’s a hardened fact rule.”

Harry, who really should have been on when Bill and Phill were on: “were they put together by a label, or were they old school friends who came up through the club scene?”
I just really like that this is how he thinks when faced with the ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut’ guys

Jamali, on #1: “I think she looks like she went fox-hunting on her hen-do.”

Daisy: “4 looks like he’s had a fistfight with every male member of his family..”
PFFF

Harry is convinced that #3 is 15.
Ricky, very off the cuff: “well hang on, pop star age is a different..it’s like dog years..”
I like what Ricky has brought to this show, I just wish he had more space to do so

Another one for the ‘Daisy shouldn’t be on this show’ file: Daisy knows it’s 2, and knows it’s 5, and is convinced it’s 4. Ricky however is sure it’s 3, as is Harry. But Daisy overrides them and goes with 4, and do I even need to say it was 3?

Jamali and I think similarly. #3 says that they’re doing a lot more together since “Ria just got back from the Cayman Islands.”
Jamali, to #5: “WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS?? MONEY-LAUNDERING??”
I see three fit whites and I hear Cayman Islands and something illegal is probably going on.
Ria, playing along: “No comment.”
I wonder if they have a McDonalds, a KFC or a Pizza Hut in the Cayman Islands. I know they have a KFC in Jamaica, but not sure about Grand Caiman.

So Noel’s ID Parade, for Lolly, is probably the quickest I’ve ever gotten who it is. Cause Greg says he’s about to play the Rockin’ Robin clip, and #2 immediately wilts and struggles to compose herself. I think she doesn’t wanna hear the song again. But then, of course, Lolly in the clip looks exactly like #2. So, the one who can’t compose herself who looks suspiciously like the lady who sang the song. Her.
Also, #3 is Amy Poehler.

Jamali, on #3: “she does look kinda serious, she looks like she runs a podcast called Wine & Crime.”
#3 grits her teeth there

Jamali: “#4 looks kinda serious, like a sex-therapist for cats..”

Sure enough, Leigh-Anne can tell a ‘pop-star vibe’ from #2, and Noel agrees with her. Sure enough, like I could tell immediately, they’re right.

Next Lines:
Greg: “it’ll be cold, so cold, without someone there to hold.”
Noel: “course it is, it’s fuckin Christmas, you dickhead.”
PFF. He just went off

The show ends with the Wurzels leading a cover of ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ by Slade, which is the right idea, despite what is probably lip-syncing.

Overall: A good word for this Xmas episode is ‘Overstuffed’. They really tried to pull out all the stops, with a supersized Intros round, but it really took away from this panel’s ability to dominate on their own. Harry, Leigh-Anne and Ricky all had nice nights, and Jamali and Noel were also having fun on their side, but it was less about them and more about the guests that turned up. And it’s nice that they could get this many people, but it felt like it was at the expense of the game, which the show keeps forgetting actually matters.

There’s still a lot to love about this show, like Harry Hill taking to Buzzcocks like a fish to water, little moments of Ricky Wilson having fun, that damned callback to Jamali asking about the irish woman, Noel getting salty near the end, and the return of everyone slamming Mike Nolan. It just felt like the show’s priorities were off, and it was less about putting on a quiz and more about putting on a show, and that’s honestly where we’re at now. And before people start coming in with ‘but it was never about the quiz’, go back to the first 22 seasons and it definitely was.

I did enjoy this show, but there were fundamental issues that held it back. Their heart’s in the right place, though.

Best Regular: Jamali snuck in at the end, but Noel and Greg had awesome nights too
Best Guest: Harry Hill, a natural
Best Runner: Daisy’s actually a man

And now, SERIES 31 SUPERLATIVES:

Best Episode: E7, with a panel sent from the gods of Katherine Ryan, excelling more than usual, Suggs, thrilled to be back, and Talia Mar, who was a really fun pop act get. This episode had the most pronounced and fully realized dynamic and energy of the season, simple as that.
2nd Best Episode: E3, another one I really liked despite having a lower key panel. Really, just letting people like CMAT run wild and letting funny things happen, like an X-Files runner and some of the most inept intros of all time coming from Jamali and Sam Campbell,
Worst Episode: Tough cause there wasn’t really a bad show this series. I guess the least consistent one was E8, as Jordan from Rizzle Kicks was kind of a comedy black hole, and smart bookings like Ashnikko and Phil Wang could only do so much.
Best Regular: It was so close between Jamali and Noel, but I’m giving it to Noel because in the heart of this season he was delivering his strongest stuff since his prime on Buzzcocks.
Best Comedian Panelist: Harry Hill, E10, for bringing more genuinely fresh comedy energy than a lot of other comedians that came on this year.
Best Musician Panelist: Paloma Faith, E5, because how can I not?
Biggest Dartboard: I suppose Chesney Hawkes, E2, who got his own button and dodged plenty of stuff about his song.
Most Impressive Get: Billy Porter, E6. Awesome that he agreed to come on, because he was a ton of fun.

And now it’s about 9 months til the next Buzzcocks, if everything goes as planned. Here’s hoping the quality stays sharp enough, and that the bookings stay this impressive, and that maybe they actually get back to the whole ‘game’ business the show got started over.

Stray Thoughts on Recent Iterations of The Traitors

I did my big writeup earlier this year on The Traitors, and then one on the US version, and while I’m not quite as batty about the franchise as I was in January, I have been keeping up with it over the course of this year. The cool thing about watching a franchise grow is that you can see so many different markets try to make it work and add their own spin, and you slowly see which ones are best at it. Just in the past few months, we’ve seen some countries that can do The Traitors really well, and we’ve come to terms with the fact that one of them honestly couldn’t.

There’s still a lot abuzz with this property right now. Traitors Canada’s midway through, I’ve enjoyed watching that one even though the host is the stockiest one I’ve encountered. Another round of UK Traitors seems to be up at bat next month, and while nothing’s been released about it, I’m still intrigued by their second act. The US S2 cast was announced, and that should be out earlier next year, though some bits are still baffling me at the present moment. And there’s probably other series in the works ready to be aired, though you’ll forgive me for not exactly rushing to watch the Israeli version right now.

I figured I’d write up the three series I have concrete thoughts on, and they’ve all wrapped relatively recently.

The Traitors New Zealand: Improper Dan Sing

There were a few things that struck me when Traitors NZ was announced. First of all, the fact that the kiwis got to do their own Traitors separate from Australia; I know The Mole also operated by this logic, with less than stellar results. Second, with a great deal of the cast being celebrities, and with the celebrity pool in NZ being a lot smaller than in AU, a lot of the cast knew each other beforehand. Many of them, such as Matt, Sam and Justine, were in the same circle of NZ comics, and were in and around Taskmaster.

And third, the guy they got to host was a disgraced former talk show host who had to resign for offending gays, immigrants, neurodiverse people and all of India. This was billed as ‘Paul Henry’s comeback’. And say what you will about using the Traitors as a next act following a successful doctor show or as a show of legitimacy after headlining an improv comedy program, but those were at least people who deserved a new television booking. Paul Henry’s burned so many bridges that it’s a wonder that this one was still standing.

Despite that, though, The Traitors NZ actually produced a worthwhile, satisfying journey. I think this production crew found the correct balance of likable and devious for some of its traitors, and made us root for our three main traitors while also wanting them to get their just desserts. This has a lot to do with how likable the cast was in general, with a lot of just nice, friendly people [Mike, Sam, Dylan, Anna] who were also willing to play the game.

The one thing that I think I like about this cast is that it skewed older. The only three contestants under 30 were all out by episode 3; even then, a majority of people in this cast looked so good that I kept thinking they were lying about their age for some reason [Collin’s older than Robbie?? Man, that makeup regimen must be strong]. But I do like that a lot of our main gameplayers were people in their late 30s and early 50s, as it’s a far cry from the usual US/AU metric of dumb 20somethings cavorting around like chickens with their heads cut off. Sam, Anna, Brooke, Justine, Dylan, Collin and Brodie were all excellent TV characters that floated outside the median age for the Traitors. It should be a lesson going forward.

Another lesson going forward? Think carefully about how you pick your traitors on Day 1. Because two of the NZ crew’s initial traitor picks failed, and the show went through six traitors overall. Yes, they did eventually get to a formula that worked, and the combinations of Brooke and Dan & Brooke and Collin were excellent, worthy Traitor dynamics. The problem is that once Matt goes, and that was gonna happen early anyhow, you run the risk of the traitor gameplay becoming quite boring. Dan was a very effective, under-the-radar traitor, but he wasn’t always great TV, and he wasn’t always likable. At least Brooke was a much more likable antagonist, and bringing in Collin made for a really interesting finale scenario. You’ve got these two giggling like idiots while the others try and bring them down. Until then, when you just get multiple accurate targets and the episode-long arc of bringing in Robbie just to burn her, it’s less exciting. Episodes 5 and 6 are the dullest ones, because it’s clear that the show wants a traitor to get to the end, but it’s also less interesting if Dan and Brooke keep rolling, so they have to try and concoct shit.

Thankfully, it does improve from there. The moment where Collin, Anna, Sam and Justine finally come down on Dan, only for Brooke to recruit Collin and set the end of the series in motion, saved this series for me, and made it so much more exciting.  I also think this series had an effective use of the endgame scenario, as the botched hit on Julia made Brooke’s loss inevitable on account of Sam and Anna’s well-documented bond. Having Sam and Anna win it was a truly satisfying conclusion, as both were wonderfully likable characters with great edits. It was also satisfying to see Brooke lose, even if he played a charismatic and engaging game.

I think Traitors NZ was following the UK’s ideas about developing this show, as a lot of the challenges are pulled from there [and a few from AU]. I did like when they pulled from NE, as the ending ‘if one person turns down the dare and the other four don’t, you win’ challenge was really effective here [Brooke and the maggots was honestly hysterical]. Paul Henry was trying to ape Claudia Winkleman, but was even more rehearsed and un-engaging, and had little to no chemistry with the cast. People have been petitioning for Rodger Corser to take over for him if NZ gets renewed, and I’d be perfectly fine for that, for reasons I’ll explain a little later in this post.

The traitor gameplay here was decent but flawed. Honestly, some of the more likable traitors in this series were ones with obvious gameplay faults. Matt was a poor choice for a day 1 traitor, and while his charisma got him by for an episode or two, he was never gonna get to the end. He was very entertaining, though, and a very fun choice. Similarly, Collin Mathura-Jeffree was such a great TV character, and made the early episodes really fun with his great delivery and demeanor. His traitorship was a little more flawed, and it was hard for him to completely stay undetected given the savvy gameplay of the remaining faithful. But even if he was never gonna win, he was still a joy to watch. And that’s honestly enough to salvage the traitor gameplay here: some bombed, like Loryn and Robbie. Some were just too dull, like Dan. But the ones that impressed me keep me from completely negating the traitor gameplay on this season.

Overall, I really enjoyed the NZ version, even if there were some flaws that stopped it from being an overwhelming success in my eyes. It did have an excellent finish, and a really strong start, thanks in part to its cast. I’d love to see this crew get another shot, especially considering a similar Oceanian iteration didn’t go as well:

Traitors Australia Series 2: Down Underwhelmed

Even as someone who liked the first series of Traitors AU, I knew there was room for improvement. The editing, the character building, the story work, Rodger’s hosting, the pacing, and the length all rubbed me the wrong way at some point, and I chalked it up to Australia’s own habits in producing reality competition shows.

So with a second series, instead of fixing a number of the problems I had, the Australian team doubled down on several of them, and added even more problems. To date, I don’t think there’s been a truly terrible season of the Traitors, but AU S2 is definitely the closest to this.

I’ll at least begin with the things I liked. Rodger was much better this series, and was better at feeling less rehearsed and more spontaneous. His rapport with fellow actor Gyton Grantley was really entertaining, and there’s a nonverbal moment of Rodger’s that cracks me up just thinking about it. He’s definitely become more comfortable with the format, and he’s found his ways to let the performance sing without completely giving into the ‘gig’.

I also think that the decision to mix in some celebrities in addition to the civilians worked for the most part. A lot of people weren’t enamored with the addition of Luke Toki to the cast, as he’s kind of a centrist moron that isn’t keen on trans people, but Luke did exactly what I thought he would here, playing a casual, fun game that ultimately didn’t succeed on account of his own cocky hubris. The civilian characters, like Roha, Annabel and Blake, didn’t completely disappear under the weight of the celebs; in fact, many celebs were gone before they could really have too much of an impact, such as Ash, Gyton and Paul. You have a guy who survived a shark attack on your show and you don’t edit him enough to make his early exit powerful?

This does lead to the main issue with this series, and that is that the editing is somehow worse. Instead of characters just flat out not being shown for the whole show, we have characters being infuriatingly overedited for the majority of the program. Mostly Sam. I did not like Sam, and I spent the whole series waiting for him to have a comeuppance that never fully arrived. He was just completely unlikable, and any time it looked like Blake would move against him, he didn’t, taking the air out of Blake’s gameplay as well. And that’s a lot of this series, just Sam antagonizing people and getting away with it, while characters that could be something, like Gloria, Keith, Hannah and Sarah, get unflattering, minimal edits. I’d say go bigger, but so many characters from the first leg of the season, like Paeden and Elias, got such mean-spirited edits that went nowhere.

It’s as if the mandate was to make the faithful as unlikable as possible so that we’d be okay with an all-traitor endgame, but that backfires when none of the ending traitors are very likable either. I guess Camille is somewhat likable [her final move helps], but it took too long for her to get a substantial edit. But you just have footage of Sarah, Ian, Roha and Hannah just shouting at each other, or footage of Liam, Sarah and Gloria made to look like absolute morons. I’ll give the Traitor gameplay this: the three people who actually had an idea of what was going on, Roha, Luke and Annabel, were trounced easily because the other idiots didn’t believe them. It was so frustrating watching Annabel close in on Sam and having no one actually let her plans gain any traction. Hell, there’s a reason Annabel stopped livetweeting the season after her ouster, because it just got less and less fun to watch these morons get walked over by Blake and Sam.

And that’s the other thing. All three of the ‘heroes’ of this series, Annabel, Roha and Luke, are people that could be considered polarizing. Annabel is a truly wonderful TV character, and she played into her overindulgent character perfectly. She was a different kind of superfan, the kind that just wanted to blend perfectly into the surroundings of the show, and I really enjoyed her. Not everyone did. Same with Luke. I’m fine with him, despite knowing he’s an ass; not everyone is. And when the few likable, fun characters on your show are delegitimized by their personalities…that’s…nooot great.

That’s what kills this season for me. It’s impossible for me to really get behind a Traitors series if there’s nobody for me to root for. At least some of the other weaker seasons had someone like Cirie or Joana that were strong gameplayers I could enjoy watching. What the fuck did this have? Camille getting fucked over for 9 episodes and then finally deciding to have the last laugh? It’s a nice ending, but it takes ages to get there.

That is basically what it comes down to: all everyone will remember about Traitors AU S2 is the final moments, where Camille is faced with a Dutch-style ‘split the pot or walk’ ending with Blake and Sam, who she’s traitored with for a few shows but have spent the whole show walking over everyone, and decides to finally shut Sam up and block either of them from getting any money. It is the antithesis of the ending of S1, where instead of the traitor breaking the poor, deluded faithful’s heart to get the money, the faithful deludes the two players nobody could catch, ensures they don’t walk away with anything, and walks away. It is a cold, badass move and it should be remembered as such. But until then, Traitors AU S2 is unbearable.

So that’s what you can say about this series. At least the ending’s good. But it’s only good because of how bad everything else was before then. It’s a demented, mean-spirited ending to a demented, mean-spirited season. It’s what it deserves.

To be honest, this show not getting renewed is the best thing for Network 10. They can sit back and really think about what went wrong, and hopefully learn from it. Or, more likely, not learn at all and keep fucking up Australian Survivor. Gee, I wonder what great gameplay will be thwarted by an impromptu non-elimination episode this time?

Forradarna [Swedish Traitors S1]: Mi First & The Gimme Gimmes

Okay. Much happier season to finish off with. Swedish Traitors. Back to Eastern Europe with all its wild needle drops, bizarrely-normalized celebrities and odd way of pronouncing the hard-e vowel.

I haven’t done as many International, non-English Traitors seasons as I should, solely because there’s so many of them and I’m not sure if all of them are worth putting the time into. I watched all of the Spanish one, it was alright, mistakes were made but it worked for the most part. I should probably watch the Norwegian one, maybe the German one. But I saw a trailer for the Swedish version, and I was intrigued. A very odd cast, laden with people specifically trained in the fields of investigative journalism and crime/problem solving, and a host who A.) had robbed a bank early in his career and B.) was in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow.

And so I dove in. And I’m very glad I did.

Folks, we have a new high bar for the best-cast Traitors season. Move over UK S1, Forradarna S1 takes the cake. Not a single unlikable contestant in this whole fucking cast. Not a one. There are campy, villainous characters that are still fun to watch. A really bad and obvious traitor that’s still a joy to see on TV. Someone who plays perhaps the single most devious game in the show’s history that still sticks the landing and makes you appreciate her gameplay.

So much of this series’ strengths draw from the cast. Weaker traitors like Filip and Mi still work as characters, Filip because of the chronicle of eventual wrongdoing and Mi because of her evil queen vibe saving goodwill from her sloppy gameplay. Characters that could be seen as more argumentative and confrontational, like Marko, Jonas H. and Johanna, are still given balanced, comprehensive edits and are allowed to have many facets. Characters that could be handed a simple moronic edit in other seasons, like Jonas von Essen, Hasse and ultimately Olivia, still have enough going on to give them dignity without completely embarrassing them. The challenges, many of them adapted from the NE version but several in the same vein as many Mole puzzle challenges, work enough on their own but are aided by these gameplayers adding intrigue. The trapdoor challenge which cracked me up in AU was even more successful here because they figured it out and got a lot of people across, and because it was hinging on all sorts of characters.

This was also a very loose cast, and host Dragomir Mrsic, said bank robber, added to that, portraying the role of a master of ceremonies trying to keep the mood light while stepping over bodies. His spirited ‘arrividerci’, pasted many times over an admission that a murder would be happening, exemplifies this. Like Rodger, he was not above a playful jab at his own filmography [a Snabba Cash pun sort of made its way in], but he took a lot from Tijl Beckand, and gave this genuine, charismatic but serious performance as the host. Might be one of my favorites overall.

The traitor gameplay here impressed me even if the overall quality of traitors was down. Mi and Filip weren’t great. Mi was clumsy the whole time, and made it even more obvious by indicating the number of traitors remaining, which I couldn’t help but laugh at. But once those two were done, it was down to Katia, who might be the single most effective traitor of all time. Nobody, not a soul, suspected it was her, and she was able to ride that trust all the way to the end, by immaculately arranging the entirety of the program. She was able to banish Marko and Feime, who were onto her, then pit Hasse and Janne against each other, pit everyone against Johanna and Nicci, and eventually Olivia, all while making a final two pact with Olivia and ensuring she’d never vote for her. The amount of moves Katia made ever-so-carefully in the last 4 or 5 episodes should be studied, because it resulted in a near perfect finale outcome: everyone’s turned against Hasse and Nicci, then Olivia votes out the only other traitor in Claudia because she trusts Katia.

It couldn’t have gone better for Katia, and it’s a masterful overall game, besting even Cirie’s solely because the quality of gameplayer was stronger here. US S1, it’s a bunch of dummies yelling at each other. Here, you have educated people like Hasse and Janne, a professional Among Us player in Nicci, and a crime aficionado in Johanna, and she gets past all of them. She even betrays Claudia in a way where she can’t even be mad, as playing Olivia against her to the end is the smartest move, and Claudia could have never gotten around that.

I absolutely adored S1 of Forradarna. I loved the cast, I loved the traitors, I loved the format and structure, I loved the story of this season, I loved all the bizarre needle drops in the same vein as the Dutch version, I loved the host, and I loved the ending. This is my new high bar for the Traitors, and I really hope this Swedish crew can produce more series like this one.

For now, I’ll be finishing up the Canadian version, waiting patiently for the next UK series, and pondering whether or not I just go for the Norwegian one. I think I’ll manage, ultimately.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E09, or Your Dad’s Didgeridoo

I’m aware of how many foundations of Never Mind the Buzzcocks’s history I’ve interfered with just by existing at this point. For instance: last month I got banned from editing the Wikipedia article detailing all of Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ episodes, solely because the admin got pissed off that I was doing their job for them.

To be honest, if you’re admining a page of a panel show that has a quarter of the audience it used to, and you’re not immediately checking the guides to see new data to compile, and if someone else is doing it for you, you should be grateful. They go up on the British Comedy Guide, I usually rely on the Wiki for my information, if nobody’s fixing it then I might as well. Make your life easier. So then halfway through the series I get a ban from editing that page for no reason other than ego. I’m trying to help, man! If you’re not doing your job, you shouldn’t punish other people trying to ease the access of information.

And this is why I’m miffed: the admin banned me for doing their job for them, yet they only reported there’d be eight episodes of Buzzcocks before the Christmas special. So because of their work, I thought regulation ended last week, and figured we’d be off til Christmas. 

Here we are. Episode 9. Which I didn’t know about because, again, the admin wasn’t doing their fucking job.

I feel like I’m just running a laundry list of things that make me the worst kind of fan of this show. First Mark Lamarr blocks me on Twitter for being too autistic, and now the NMTB Wikipedia page is enacting a strict no-Jordan policy solely because I care more about the curation of information than the admin does. What’s next, am I gonna get a restraining order against Simon Amstell for saying his sudden soft gay aesthetic is a sham?

Alright alright. Anyway. 31×09. Which does exist.

Pretty low-key panel, honestly. I’ve heard of people, but there’s no wild returnee like other shows. Danny Goffey was the drummer for Supergrass, that’s a pretty cool get. Freya Ridings is a relatively well known british singer-songwriter type I feel I’ve heard of from somewhere. Kiell Smith-Bynoe is, what else, our umpteenth Taskmaster carry-over, though he’s best known for his role in Ghosts. Yeah, pretty standard, but could be fun

Greg, in introing Freya, mentions that “her father is the voice of Daddy Pig from Peppa Pig, SO PLEASE WELCOME TO THE SHOW, PEPPA PIG’S SISTER.”

Greg, introing Danny: “On [Supergrass’s] first album I Should Coco, he said “I don’t think it’s the sort of music you can masturbate to.” Don’t be defeated so easily, Danny. [removes glasses] YOU CAN GET THERE.”
Greg Davies being himself is still one of the strengths of this show

[Also, genuinely gutting that Danny from Supergrass now looks like a 50something year old dad. Man, it really has been nearly 30 years since that album, hasn’t it?]

Greg gets to some of the deeper bits the interns found, on Danny: “he tells me that when you were young, you learned to play the drums on your mom’s ass with chopsticks.”
It’s a very funny anecdote about playing the bongos on your mom’s ass as she does the washing up. Noel, Freya and Daisy all can’t believe it.
Jamali: “at first I was quite disturbed by this story, and now I kinda wanna have a go on my mum’s arse.”
Greg: “we were all a bit more relaxed back in the day..”
Noel: “exactly, your dad’s digeridoo..”
PFFF
Greg goes down
Noel: “you’re uncle’s oboe, it was all..”
GOOD LORD

Noel: “it’s what me and Greg used to do for fun, it was the 70s..”
Greg: “I mean, my mum barely had her tits in during the 80s..”

Greg, of course, tries to divert the conversation about Freya from the Peppa Pig stuff
Greg: “Freya, I’ve heard, uh-“
Noel, doing the work for him: “THAT YOUR DAD’S THE VOICE OF PEPPA PIG’S..”
PFFFF

Greg, to Kiell: “my researcher tells me you are absolutely sick of being asked if you believe in ghosts. Is that true?”
Kiell: “Yeah, big time..”
Greg, reading ahead: “okay…this is a bit awkward..”
Kiell: “just mix it up a bit.”
Greg: “okay, uh…do you…”
Cher button: “BELIIEEEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE”
THERE’S A CHER BUTTON NOW? 
Kiell: “…yes, I do.”
Greg: “do you-“
HOT CHOCOLATE BUTTON: “BELIEVE IN MIRACLES”
This is getting out of hand. Even Kiell loves this one
Kiell, smirking: “how many have you got?”
Danny asks “do you ‘believe I can fly'”
Greg: “oh no we’re not allowed to do I Believe I Can Fly, on account of R. Kelly..”

Danny, still on R. Kelly: “d’you know he stopped our band from being #1, in 1997.”
Jamali, of course: “I can’t say that’s the worst crime he’s ever done…”
[Is this how I find out that Richard III nearly was a #1 hit while Alright was stuck at #2? I mean, Richard III is a great song, In it for the Money is a very underrated and cool album, but…interesting]

Greg genuinely asks Kiell if he believes in ghosts, and he’s CLENCHING HIMSELF as he does this.
Kiell: “…I can’t remember.”

[It is a good sign when even the pre-game probing works for me. That’s a lot of really funny stuff]

On a early job that Jarvis Cocker took:

Danny talks about Jarvis causing a stir at the BRITs. “He got up and wafted his arse [at Michael Jackson]”
Daisy, calling back: “I bet you loved that…”

Jamali: “Honestly, it’s not that bad an idea to waft a fart at Michael Jackson, cause at that point his nose wasn’t so smelly..”
[Jamali as a joke-crafter is having a great show. He’s underrated in this regard]

Daisy: “if she wants to put some hairs on his chest, she’s gonna go ‘right, you’re gonna see a pig get fucked.”
PFFF. WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT..
Noel: “can I just say that Freya’s dad’s gonna be watching this and he’s gonna be MORTIFIED.”

For what feels like the umpteenth time, Daisy ignores the better judgment of someone who has the right answer and gets it wrong. Danny KNOWS Jarvis, and GOT that it was A, and Daisy still went with B.

On Busta Rhymes’ early job in England, which, this is how I found out Trevor, as Greg insists on calling him, spent some time in the UK growing up:
Greg stops dead in the middle of A and has to compose himself.

Daisy talks about going on a ride at Alton Towers in a tube top and having her tits fly out on the drop, “and the guy behind me tried to buy the bloody picture”
Noel, of course: “i’ve got a key-ring of that..”

Jamali knows it’s B because he knows Busta lived in Morecambe for a year. Jamali is having a very different showing tonight, while still being himself

After the break, Greg calls NMTB “the show what is to music what water retention is to King Charles’ fingers”
Noel breaks
Greg, to the confused audience: “THE GUY’S GOT FAT FINGERS, HIS FINGERS ARE FUCKED”
Noel: “imagine his bowling ball…”
[BTW, I’m pretty sure this intro got switched with the one from the opening, as it feels like Greg was about to go onto ‘joining Noel and Jamalli’]

Noel and Freya’s first one I’m not sure about. It does sound a little like that one dance track that the guy from Crazy Town did the vocals on. 
[Ah, turns out it’s Mardy Bum by the Arctic Monkeys. Fair]

Greg, seeing the 2nd intro: “you might get this, Jamali.”
Freya and Noel start this weird piano bouncy beat
Greg: “…oh, maybe you won’t”
So then pretty much everyone joins in with the snaps from Love Cats by The Cure, with Greg even throwing in some cat noises
[Jamali doesn’t get this one]

Ah yes, Daisy is back doing intros this week
Danny: [does the tune]
Daisy: [makes loud bird noises]
I swear to god, can she just get immensely popular in the next 9 months or so?

Both Kiell, as well as Freya and Jamali, are DUMBFOUNDED by this one
Jamali: “sounds like a space-ostrich mating call..”

It turns out to be a Stormzy song, which explains why I had no idea what it was [quite obviously, we don’t get Stormzy over here].

And their 2nd one:
Daisy: “BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPwait what?”
Danny: “it’s…the parrot’s back…”

The actual intro, which Danny desperately tries to model for Daisy, goes poorly because Daisy just resorts to squawking rather than doing the notes.

The twist of the century is that Daisy’s bollocksing of the piano banging completely hid the fact that they were doing ‘Alright’. Kiell got it but couldn’t get the title. It makes it even funnier that Danny had to TEACH IT TO DAISY, and she STILL COULDN’T GET IT. Man, I really miss Phill Jupitus.
Greg: “Incredible to hear Daisy go ‘N-N-SHH’, TO A MEMBER OF SUPERGRASS.”

Very funny that both teams got Intros correct, but not their own. 

Daisy’s team has to pick out the drummer from Let Loose [whose lead was on the show back in the show’s infancy]

For some reason, Greg doesn’t give them numbers this week. Nor does the show. I’m not sure why this is.

Noel, slyly: “I don’t think you’d be able to see 4 over the drumkit..”
Daisy: “#4 looks like he’s got a picture of him and Wayne Lineker on his Instagram..”
Noel, trying to get back on his good side: “4 looks like a thoroughly lovely modern gentleman..”
Greg: “4’s gonna beat the shit out of someone, I don’t mind..”

Jamali: “#2 looks like he does a podcast about being divorced.”
#2: [sort of winks]
Jamali: “it’s called #StellaGetsHerGrooveBack”

Once again, Danny is pretty sure it’s #3, but Kiell and Daisy skew the team towards 5. And it ends up being 3. Daisy May Cooper, man. She’s genuinely terrible at this.

Noel’s team have to pick out a member of Northern Uproar

Again, the hell happened to the numbers? Did one of the ID Parade participants have a strict no-numbers clause??
Greg dubs #4 “PTSD, Falklands War”, which gets most of Daisy’s panel cracking up

Greg says one of the band members became a hairdresser but was fired because “he kept nicking people’s ears.” This confuses Noel and Jamali, so he clarifies ‘cutting them’
Freya: “I thought you meant KNICKING them, like stealing them..”
That’s a funnier visual. I wish Noel would have expanded on that
Jamali: “When you said, like, stealing them, I thought it was #5..”

They start pointing out #1’s exposed shins
Greg: “from the waist down he looks like the cool mum at the school gate.”
Noel, after the applause dies down: “what’s weird about that joke is you haven’t got any kids..”

Jamali: “I would say #4, but #4 does not look happy, like he’s got stepkids that just don’t listen to him..”
Jamali is still excellent at this round

Overall: Trailed off towards the end but at its height this was an excellent show. I do think this was a bit top heavy, with a lot of the best stuff coming in the first half, but there were a lot of really nice gags. I did notice that this was a somewhat quieter panel, as Greg had to poach Danny and Freya a few times, but they were all very good. I liked having Danny here, and how into it he was, and I like Kiell as this sort of realistic but fun comic guest. It honestly just proves the strength of this panel arrangement and these regulars. I think this is a pretty nice one to end the series proper on, unless the wikipedia admin has kept anything else from us.

Best Regular: Jamali had an excellent show on a number of levels tonight
Best Guest: Danny charmed me the most
Best Runner: Danny drumming on his mom’s arse

COMING UP NEXT: Probably the Christmas show. Hopefully they produce a strong enough lineup for that one.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S13E08, or Come On, The Condors!!

Kind of interesting when Phil Wang is your least provocative booking, but that’s how Buzzcocks decided to end regulation.

Phil Wang appearing on this show makes sense, as he’s the fourth Taskmaster contestant to do the show this series, after Sam Campbell, Judi Love and Katherine Ryan. And I guess you can say that Ashnikko doing Buzzcocks makes sense in a way, as Ashnikko is an up-and-coming pop act that’s done collabs with Doja Cat and Grimes, and even if she is a more indie queer fringe pop sort of thing, if you squint it could make sense.

But…letting Jordan from Rizzle Kicks back in here certainly is a fucking choice.

Not that I don’t think Rizzle Kicks worked, in points, on this show. I liked them better as panel supplanters than as guest hosts, but they were capable of funny, loose stuff. It’s just that their behavior led directly to Huey Morgan smashing a mug and walking off the show. If there had been a different host that night, it wouldn’t have happened. Jordan and Harley just kept needling Huey and doing cute, unfunny things to him til he couldn’t take it. And I know it brings me back into dissecting exactly who’s in the wrong there, and I’ve done that too many times on here, but I don’t think Rizzle Kicks exactly came out as the undisputed winners there. So having Jordan Stephens back, that’s a bold statement.

And being that it’s a safer, more palatable era of Buzzcocks, it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest if Huey Morgan isn’t even fucking mentioned.

But yeah, kind of a wild set of bookings for the end of the proper series. Let’s see if it’s a strong finish.

Greg brings up Ashnikko’s routine of waking up, eating cereal, masturbating and crying.
Ash: “WHEN DID I SAY THAT?”

Also, by the looks of Ash, I am not surprised in the slightest that she collab’d with Grimes:

It’s some weird combination between Rita Repulsa, Jareth the Goblin King and Coraline. And hey, if the kids are into it, rock the fuck on.

Greg, to Ash: “you’ve been making candles and crocheting, yes? That’s very sweet.”
Ash, before Greg can read ahead: “yeah, the only sweet thing-”
Greg: “hang on. You’re crocheting dicks and the candles are of dick tentacles.”
Ash, as if this isn’t weird to her: “yeah.”

I love the moment where Ash explains tentacle porn to Greg, Greg asks if that is such a thing, Jordan IMMEDIATELY confirms it [I wanna make this absolutely clear, I mean the Jordan from Rizzle Kicks. My reaction is a bit closer to Phil’s], while Phil just confusedly goes “porn??”

Jamali: “there’s only 3 holes but there’s 8 tentacles.”
Ash: “yeah, they take turns”
Jamali: “so what, are the other tentacles makin’ a cup of tea or something?”
Again, Jamali always gets along well with the eccentrics on this show
Greg: “…you’ve got nostrils, ya square..”

Greg reads off another lewd fact about Ash’s upbringing
Ash: “How did you guys know that?”
Greg, perfectly: “oh our researcher rang you.”

Ash: “me and my friend had a business, and we would just draw loads of tits-”
Noel: “I’m not sure if that constitutes as a business..”

Jamali: “could you ask for a certain type of tit, or did you just get what you get?”
Greg: “looks like there’s a customer in the building..”
Ash: “I mean, I was 11 I was just guessing.”
Jordan, unsurprisingly: “listen, at age 11 I was doin’ all sorts..”

Greg then invites the panel to draw some erotic pictures, which is a development with this show that isn’t all that surprising
Noel: “I’m gonna draw Jamali bent over the desk…”
Phil: “Ashnikko needs extra time, she’s got eight limbs to draw..”

Greg, of course, says that this bit “brings out the teacher [in me].”

I really like this current incarnation of Greg we’ve seen since Taskmaster, mixing the smirking prankster with the stuck up teacher really well. Him hosting this show has given Buzzcocks a nice direction, and a willing proctor. Even if this ends up going south, he’s been one of its strengths

Jordan: “I was gonna be really smart with it and draw my girlfriend’s brain, and then I realized I don’t know how to draw a brain…”
So nothing’s changed

Daisy’s is something she’s not proud of:

Phil: “looks like someone skipped head day…”

Greg: “Noel, let’s have a look.”
Noel, cracking: ‘you sure?”
I’m…obviously not gonna show this on here, but Noel draws a full naked lady with Greg Davies’ head, and a small octopus nearby. Not since Noel’s shark penis sketch from the guest host era has he been so cheekily himself on a drawing assignment.

Daisy’s team, on how Johnny Cash mouthed off to someone:
The quick zooms on Greg paired with his angry recitations of Cash’s badmouthing are what make this even funnier for me

Jamali talks about doing a gig where his ‘I look like a terrorist’ jokes weren’t going over well, “so I said “Oh, you people don’t know what it’s like to have everyone think you’re a terrorist”, and then I remembered I was in Northern Ireland.”
PFFF. That is a great joke, ironically

Greg: “do you think Johnny Cash is capable of shooting a man in the mouth?”
Phil, wisely: “he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, so..”

Jordan doesn’t make himself look any smarter in my eyes by asking why the American lifeguard is fourteen, forgetting that a lot of Americans start working as lifeguards at the shore or beach or pool as their first ever working experience as teenagers.

Noel: “how do you kill 49 condors with a forest fire? Surely they can just fly away..”
Jordan: “not all birds can fly, Noel.”
Noel: “…well, CONDORS can…”
Man, Huey Morgan’s looking more and more innocent as we go on..

Jamali has a point about birds that can’t fly not being actual birds, and when Jordan asks him about penguins, Jamali refers to them as a ‘little fish thing’. He’s doing this for the laughs but he’s got actual emotion behind it, which makes it work
Greg: “I can’t wait for Jamali’s Blue Planet 5.”

Noel’s team, on what got Mark E. Smith from The Fall in trouble:

Ash, like me, admits she doesn’t know who Mark E. Smith is. The Fall didn’t make it over here.

Noel, cracking up: “I went to see The Fall, and…I don’t know why this happened, he did the gig from the dressing room. The band were onstage and he sang the songs from the dressing room..”
What a visual
Noel: “it was GENIUS.”
Phil: “had he taken a mic in, or was it just a distant voice?”
Noel: “he had a mic, he was like ‘I ain’t going out there, but I’ll sing the songs from the dressing room..”
Ash: “I need to start doing that…”

Jamali, after Greg lists off that Smith hated Jane Austen. “I hate Jane Austen, she’s too much talking about yesterday! Talk about today!”
Greg: “YEAH, WHEN ARE YOU GONNA START LIVIN IN THE MOMENT, AUSTEN?”

Jamali does defend English Mexican food, which Ash is also on record as not enjoying: “we do a better version of tacos than they do Yorkshire pudding.”

Jamali: “I’m gonna go for that salad, bro.”
Greg nearly chokes on his drink.
Jamali: “HOW IS THAT FUNNY?”
Greg: “‘I’m gonna go for that salad’, feels like a sentence you’ve not said before.”
Noel: “do you eat salads?”
Jamali: “yeah, I eat more salads than fuckin’ GREG…”
I kinda love Jamali and Greg’s dynamic, it reminds me a lot of Mark and Bill’s

Jordan and Phil’s first intro is messy but gets the melody down. I think it’s The Way I Are by Nelly Furtado, but I feel like there’s an 80s song that used that melody on a keyboard.
My next guess, Push It by Salt N Pepa, was also wrong. It turned out to be Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox, which doesn’t explain why Jordan thought it had the same melody as Push It.

Greg makes a joke about Daisy stockpiling dodos under her bed. “It’s awful what she’s done to those birds, they WISH they were extinct.”
Noel: “…he’s like a young Johnny Cash.”

I love Phil’s horrified reaction right before the second intro is about to start:

Jordan: “…wait, who goes first?”

It’s a little shaky to start, but Phil and Jordan accurately get the melody of Aretha Franklin’s Respect down pretty well, and Daisy gets it easily

Jordan, as he and Phil sit down after Intros, goes “smashed that, mate.” How Huey Morgan didn’t come over and burn the studio to the ground after that, I have no idea.

Jamali, as Ash gets up for intros: “are you competitive?”
Ash: “oh yeah.”
Jamali: “cause we, uh, never win.”

I’m glad Jamali knew their first intro was a Daniel Bedingfield song, cause I just thought it sounded like the Mii Channel theme.

It saddens me that the song Ash doesn’t end up knowing that Noel has to carry is fucking You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon.
Ash does incite a mass round of clapping along from the audience, which Greg has to put a halt to
Noel: “Jamali, don’t let the white people clapping put you off”

It makes me feel a little better than Jamali doesn’t know it either. Cause if he knew it and Ash didn’t, that’d flip me over the couch.

Daisy’s team has to pick out the lead from Bad Boys Inc.:

Greg: “#4, Ungodly Kink, Wees in the Sink.”
Jordan, of course: “Sometimes it’s practical!”
Again, I wanna stress, I mean the bloke from Rizzle Kicks.

Greg: “and #5………”
Jordan: “oh for FUCK’S SAKE..”
Greg, clenching himself: “I practiced this so many times so that I wouldn’t ruin it…alright…or is it #5, Two in the Pink, one in the stink.”

Phil: “they all look very bad, but not ‘so bad they didn’t get ‘Incorporated'”
I really like the angle Phil comes from a lot tonight

Noel: “#5 looks like Wolverine looking into a spoon”
#5: [smiles for a half-second]

Jordan: “I am 78% sure it’s #1, and I’ve got no fuckin’ idea why.”

Daisy, suddenly: “how many are we looking for?”
Greg: “…one.”
And Greg just gives her a look. Daisy hasn’t done a ton to put me on her side this series.
Phil: “I think this is the whole band…”

The wild part is that they go with 4, and it ends up being 1, meaning JORDAN WAS RIGHT. Not me, I thought it was #3, but the guy from Rizzle Kicks is distraught.

So uh…Noel’s ID Parade is a pretty big deal. They’ve gotta get two members of Dodgy, INCLUDING MATH PRIEST, who made like 5 appearances on this very show:

I’m pretty sure that’s him at #4. #5 is just Steve Frost if he was Nosferatu.

Jamali: “I think #3’s got a tramp stamp tattoo of a British bulldog.”

Jamali: “#1 looks very tired.”
Daisy: “#1’s Pete Doherty, isn’t it?”
…Daisy he was right next to you less than 9 months ago. What is going ON?

Jamali: “I think #4 looks like a blacksmith in an elven kingdom. He’ll give you a QUEST, bruv.”
Math: [smirks]
Noel: “and weirdly he’s standing next to #5, who’s about to tell me I’ve got three wishes and I should use them wisely.”

Jamali: “Number 3 looks like he played Santa Claus, but in Broadmoor.”
PFFFF. That got me

Noel smartly has a feeling #4 was in the band, y’know, cause he was sentient during the 90s. Jamali throws in a certainty about 1, and they get ’em both right. Had to be weird for Math, coming back here 25 years later. It’s like going back to your old school.

Math, on what they’re up to: “it’s amazing, people pay us loads to play music, STILL.”
He sounds almost exactly like he did in ’96, so that’s pretty cool.
Also, I love how matter-of-fact Greg is about being a fan of Dodgy’s, cause they were a fun mid-90s britpoppy band. I always enjoy when Greg’s honest about what he enjoyed, and when he gets to tell people he loves their music.

I did not expect Phil Wang getting a more accurate Beyonce lyric than Daisy May Cooper.

Greg: “Noel’s team, you need 3 to win.”
Noel: “that is one less than the amount of condors that are left. WE’RE DOING IT FOR THE CONDORS. Every point, another condor gets saved.”
Greg: “LOVE YOU, CONDORS.”
This is such a silly throughline for this show

Ash is so caught off guard by her lyrics showing up that she doesn’t go for it.
Noel: ‘COME ON, THE CONDORS!!”

Ash, post-Next Lines, almost traumatically: “…that was so fast.”
To be honest, I don’t know if I’d do much better
Greg, bluntly: “two of the songs were…your songs.”
I just felt him channeling Mark there for a second

Overall: A fine show. Not to the heights of other Buzzcocks this season, but there was still some good stuff, like the condors runner, the return of Math Priest, and a lot of Phil Wang’s contributions. The panel wasn’t uproarious as some other ones, and Jordan was more of a reactive piece than a full contributor. Ash was fun but I could tell she was overwhelmed at some points. Phil was awesome but I’m not sure if he was meant to lead as much as he did. Decent enough, and like a lot of shows this series, a fine picture of where this reboot has settled.

Best Regular: Noel, who must have just been in a nice upswing this series
Best Guest: Phil, who took to Buzzcocks naturally
Best Runner: avenging the condors

COMING UP NEXT: In like two months, there will be a Christmas special. It will be very hard to top last year’s, but with the booking standards Buzzcocks has gotten up to, they may try.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks: S31E07, or Also with a Lame Horse

Okay. So Suggs is back for his first Buzzcocks in practically 2 decades, and the host of the show is someone who’s been known to do a Chris Eubank impression. Can you tell I have high expectations for this one?

This is what I mean when I say that the panel selection has improved from even last series. Not only is Suggs back, meaning he’ll have a lot of fun like always, but Katherine Ryan is back. Katherine was always a very solid presence on Buzzcocks, and I just got done explaining why she was so good for Mock the Week even if she felt hampered by its conventions. The one thing is, this Katherine Ryan is the modern iteration, complete with lip fillers and a lot more money, so we’re a far cry from the humbler Katherine we last saw in 2014.

And also, there’s a relatively simple pop singer booking in the form of Talia Mar. Maybe she’ll surprise me. I was pleasantly surprised by Stefflon Don earlier this series.

Greg does talk about how big of a Madness fan he was growing up, which means it’s pretty cool that Suggs was able to come on this version.

Talia’s shocked that Greg just went and told everybody her real name, and her real surname of Haddock.
Greg: “there’s never been a popstar called Margaret Haddock…”

Katherine, in mid-anecdote: “I’ve had orthodontic work, because I’m not FROM this country and that’s what we do..”
This is funny, but man am I not a fan of Katherine’s ‘I’m better than everyone’ persona.
It’s about her large gap in between her front teeth. “You could fit an entire thumb through my gap, or…a teenage penis.”

It’s funny, Noel talks about being called field-mouse as a kid, and I remember Phill calling him that during some of the cold opens they filmed years ago, so maybe Phill liked that.

Greg and Suggs have an honest conversation about the reputation of naughtiness that Madness had, and Suggs is honest about ‘having a lot of the bad stuff sort of blacked out’.
Greg: “you were banned from Top of the Pops FOUR TIMES.”
Suggs: “Indeed. I think in this very studio.”
[I love that detail. How far the ITV studios have come]

Suggs talks about getting thrown off for Lee wearing a shirt that said ‘I need the BBC…like I need a hole in the fuckin’ head’, and the brass chewing them out for being an embarrassment.
Jamali: “that was a wild time when THAT was the biggest problem the BBC had..”
Yeah, considering who was hosting TOTP a lot in that era…

Mercifully, the opening chat portion last less than 5 minutes this show.

On who got revenge on Elton John:

1. Greg goes down after ‘the universally loathed Paul Burrell’, and to be honest that is a very funny detail
2. I counted two ‘for God’s sakes’ out of Suggs. One at David Gest’s impotence, the other at ‘goodbye yellow dick toad’, which I think a writer definitely came out with.
3. Greg can’t stop himself from smiling at C, and who can blame him?

Noel, like me: “Well it’s not #2, because you definitely came up with ‘goodbye yellow dick toad’…the RELISH in which you said it…”

Talia: “I’m so out of my depth, I don’t know what half these words are..”
Greg: “…you dunno what half the WORDS are??”
and then, Greg: “you know who Liza Minnelli is?”
Talia: “I’ve heard the name..”
[GROANS FROM OLDER AUDIENCE MEMBERS]
Katherine jokes about kids not knowing about things other than their specific frame of reference, “so you could play Stairway to Heaven for them and tell ’em you wrote it.”
…did…did Katherine Ryan really just do a ‘kids these days’ joke? I’m sorry, I’m gonna be beside myself this whole show. She used to be the hip, young ditzy blonde, now she thinks she’s fucking Joan Rivers??

Katherine: “we could get anything past you, Haddock, and I love that about you..”
Greg: “no one could believe that someone called Margaret Haddock had never heard of Liza Minnelli..”
This is what I mean about Katherine being a very good ‘in-line-with-the-show’ presence here
Greg: “you’d sorta think they were best friends!”
Noel: “because Liza’s real name is Liza Halibut.”

Jamali: “if I said to you ‘shit, I need a kazoo’, it’s not something that you could find at a moment’s notice..”
[You say that, but 2 people came to a NMTB taping with kazoos in 2000]
GREG: “I’ve got three” [PLACES THREE KAZOOS ON THE TABLE]
YES

Greg even makes Talia try to operate a kazoo, which she struggles with
Katherine, overjoyed: “oh, someone get a landline!”
PFFF. This is really working for me

Somehow, Jamali ends up being right with A, and because Noel doesn’t listen to him, he doesn’t get the point

Greg, quoting the story: “But at least Elton John didn’t end up dead’ [crosses fingers] AT TIME OF RECORD.”
Pheww, that was a close one

Greg, before he reads the options for what Bananarama did to a music legend, notes that he remembers that one of these is absolutely ridiculous. Which means Greg has been prepping these before air, but apparently not well enough to prevent this one:

1. After Greg giggles through #1, Noel asks him if that was it, and he nods no, motioning ‘let me go on’.
2. Greg does manage to plow through the others like a champ. Again, that prep is working out

Greg asks for any personal revenge stories
Jamali: “my sister said something to me when I was thirteen-”
Noel, in mid-sip, can tell this is the setup for some awful Jamali joke, and nearly does a spit take.
Jamali, sure enough: “so I convinced my mom to cut ‘er out of the will.”

Katherine: “My mom’s got a weekly podcast that has about 100 episodes where she just slags me off…she’ll just say things like ‘people must wonder what I did to be ostracized from my grandchild’s christening…”
Greg: “but you get on well with your mum, don’t you?”
Katherine: “ye-*I* THOUGHT SO…”
This stuff works better for me than the rest of the ‘holier than thou’ stuff Katherine’s done recently. Just the off the cuff natural stuff, which Greg, from Taskmaster, knows how to get out of her.

Greg produces a round where they put up a celebrity, and Suggs has to tell what he did to them. The first one was Piers Morgan.
Suggs: “…wasn’t only me, but I WAS involved…and we turned his car over at a racetrack.”
You can tell this is a good crowd because this results in applause.

Suggs also talks about being dressed as a cop next door to a Clash video shoot, busting down the door, “only to hear doors slamming and toilets flushing.” THAT is fantastic.

Daisy goes with B and ends up being right, even if Greg makes them think it was the Bonnie Tyler one for a half-second.

Talia and Jamali’s first one is so odd. Cause like…it’s not great, Jamali’s not doing it justice, but I can TELL it’s Tainted Love by Soft Cell.
Noel gets this, solely off of Talia’s perfect rendition of the opening beat.

Their second one, which Greg admits he’s excited to hear, is similarly awful. Jamali is tasked with doing the sax part from Careless Whisper, and he’s just…not doing it justice at all. But I can tell that it’s Careless Whisper, though.
Greg is losing it for almost its entire duration. Jamali’s trying his best not to crack.

Embarrassingly, nobody knows the actual name of the song. Not even Daisy, who I’m starting to wonder what her qualifications were for being on a music quiz in the first place.

Greg: “I’ve got a buzzer linked directly to the writer’s room, and the writer who wrote this joke will get sacked immediately if it doesn’t go down well.”
I like when Greg brings this Taskmaster alpha persona into Buzzcocks, even if it makes a slightly awkward fit compared to someone like Mark Lamarr.
and so “Let me tell you, whispering can be dangerous, like when a colleague whispered to the chief scientist in the Chernobyl control room, ‘who’s your favorite actor?’ ‘WHAT?? TURN OFF THE REACTOR??”
PFFFFF. Okay, that one did get me but I’m not proud of it.
THE AUDIENCE: [more groans than laughs]
Greg: [presses the button]

Katherine, realizing that A.) she has to receive intros, and B.) she has to receive intros from Daisy: “ohhhh NOOOO…”

Daisy for some reason has been tasked with the melody of her and Suggs’ first intro [which I’m guessing is All of the Lights by Kanye West]. Suggs, meanwhile, does a slightly-off-beat clapping. Daisy just stops, turns to him and goes “WHAT ARE YOU, A SEAL?”
Suggs, perfectly: ‘…just imagine that with a bit of rhythm.”
Katherine: “it sounds like a huge anthem that I know, but also with a lame horse.”
My god, when she’s on tonight she is KILLING it.

For the record, Talia knows it’s Ne-Yo’s Miss Independent. Which means Suggs had the right idea in handling the rhythm there.
Greg: “and, at last, Haddock’s youth comes into play.”

Greg: “Ne-Yo once said, ‘I don’t want to call myself a perfectionist because perfection is imperfection.’ That’s weird. I don’t want to call you a perfectionist, Ne-Yo, [begins to crack] because your music’s shit and you’re a knob…”
He just crumbles. Again, I don’t blame him.

Daisy and Suggs doing ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ is just as ridiculous as it sounds. It honestly could have fit right in with some of the stuff he helped out with back in the original run.
Noel gets it. I do like how competitive Suggs is tonight, going ‘aah damn you’ after Noel’s side steals both their team’s intros.

I also really like Katherine, because she grew up in Canada, not knowing this song, then asking Talia if she knew it [she did]. I really enjoy how well this panel gets along.

Noel’s team’s ID Parade for Nomad:

Jamali: “#3’s my favorite, bruv. He looks like a baby’s been fed Stella.’
Noel, for the second time tonight, just loses it before Jamali even gets to the punchline. Like he can tell when Jamali’s about to pounce.

Greg mentions that ‘I Wanna Give You Devotion’ was kept off the #1 spot by, oddly enough, Do the Bartman.

Noel: “I think the person who made this tune has done a shitload of drugs.”
Jamali: “so #3’s back in the game..”

It’s great, because they have very inspired things to say about everybody, but every so often Jamali just goes back to #3: “he’s dressed like he’s gone undercover at preschool.”
I LOVE THAT ONE. And #3 is desperately trying not to break, even as Jamali’s bellowing over the desk.

Noel: “if it is #3, we’re gonna have to leave this show, Jamali..”

I kinda love that Talia and Noel go with #5 because he’s giggling the most, and it ends up being him.

Daisy’s team, on who’s a member of Three of a Kind:

I like Greg’s line for #5, as he tries to center himself after laughing at #4’s: “Looks Really Hard, Jamali Be Kind.”
EVEN GREG KNOWS

I’m beginning to realize the thing Daisy does the best on this show: “I remember this song so well, because I was fingered to it a few times.”

You can see several of the members of the ID Parade just curdle at this.
Suggs, with a good 10 seconds of not knowing what to say: “….crikey.”

At the last second, Daisy figures out that it’s 4, and is right for it. So that’s pretty cool. To me, the giveaway was him just sagging at the fingering comment.

This show, the Mick Hucknall round makes the edit. Ye gods.

Daisy guesses the first one, correctly, as Sam Smith.
Suggs: “oh, well done. I was gonna say ‘Batman’.”
Suggs is, as predicted, having a nice time on here.

The second one is a Mick-ified version of Doja Cat’s red-scaled red carpet look.
Talia: “that is horrifying by the way.”
Noel: “that’s the stuff of nightmares…”

At the third one, which is Mick pasted over Taylor Swift, Suggs: “..oh GOD…so disgusting..”
Greg, perfectly: “Why won’t Mick come on the show?”
You have a better chance of getting Chris Eubank..

Suggs, as the fourth one starts: “ah, for god’s sakes..”
I’m really glad he’s not holding back. After Dermot last week, he’s making up for things on that side.

After like 10 seconds of nobody getting this one:

Suggs: “The Pope’s wife.”
PFFFF.

I love the moment in Next Lines where Greg riles off a line from Baggy Trousers and Suggs guesses the wrong one. He emits a ‘FUCK ME’ as Greg gives him the real ones. He’s been singing this for forty-five years, you think he’d know the right order…

I am not surprised in the slightest that Katherine Ryan aces a Beyonce lyric.

Noel: “we’ve already won so we can just say ridiculous things..”
Greg: “I might give minus-points if you give really silly ones.”
Noel: “you can’t do that…”
Greg: “I CAN DO WHAT I FUCKIN LIKE, MATE.”

Greg: “one taught me love, one taught me patience”
Noel, before Talia can do the correct ones: “ONE TAUGHT ME…a weird position that I couldn’t..”

Overall: Could you tell I really enjoyed this one? Like last show, putting a really nice panel together went a long way, and you saw Katherine, Talia and Suggs all plugging into this show in crucial points, without anything feeling too forced. Katherine’s a pro at this, even if her schtick is a bit less genuine than before, she’s still very funny and quick as hell when she needs to be. Suggs picked up exactly where he left off and had a fun time. Talia was a really surprising and fun panel presence, and she contributed a lot on Noel’s time. Noel, meanwhile, continued his surprisingly strong S31 and dominated this show. It was a breezy, substantial and fun Buzzcocks where everyone contributed and every round had something funny happen, which is really all I want at this point.

Best Regular: Noel, who’s been having a nice renaissance this year
Best Guest: Katherine was the most reliable
Best Runner: Margaret Haddock

COMING UP NEXT: What a wild panel we have to end the proper series. Says something when Phil Wang is the most sensible booking.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E06, or Let’s See That Other Hand, Girl!

When I say that modern Buzzcocks should have panel arrangements that feel fresh and out-of-the-ordinary, this is exactly what I mean.

The least well-known person in this panel is someone I have still heard of- Dermot Kennedy’s songs have gotten play on some of the alt-rock stations I listen to. Then there is the savvy alumni booking, in Roisin Murphy of Moloko, who made several very fun appearances on the original Mark Lamarr version. Roisin recently came under fire for some uneducated comments she made about trans people, which she has since apologized for, which explains why this episode has been released and the Lady Leshurr one has been locked in the same vault the Russell Brand show was. And then we have Billy Porter, who honestly is known more for his status as an actor than as a singer to me, but did have a musical career in addition to roles on Pose and such.

What’s odd is that this means there are no British guests. An American and two Irish people. That’s something you don’t see everyday on this show. There have honestly been a ton of Americans on this series in general, cause we’ve had people like Gregory and Jake Shears, and we’ve got another American down the pipe in a couple weeks [that one’ll be interesting to say the least].

Greg mentions that Billy won 100 grand on an episode of the original Star Search with Ed McMahon, “unlike tonight, where all he’ll be taking home is the disgust for the standards of british television.”

Very funny bit where Greg mentions that all of Roisin’s favorite karaoke songs are in Italian, goes ‘no way, me too!’, and barrels into a rousing rendition of Shaddapa You Face. The funniest bit to me is Roisin providing an ‘EY!’ on the downbeats.

Greg: “I wanna get straight in with the big questions. Dermot, tell me about being attacked by a goose.”
Dermot: “Terrible.”
It’s kind of a simple story, though I like Dermot going “you should interview the goose, actually, because my mom dealt with it.”
Jamali: “Did your mom phone his mom?”
HAHAHA. Okay. Gripe all you want about how Buzzcocks isn’t as good now, Jamali Maddix is still fucking hysterical.

Noel reveals he was attacked by “an alpaca, I think.”
Greg: “AN ALPACA, I THINK.”
Noel: “It might have been a llama, it’s hard to tell. I mean, what is an alpaca, just a llama with a perm…it’s like, what’s a moth, it’s just a 70s butterfly, innit?”
ROISIN GOES DOWN AT THIS. Yeah, she thought SHE was weird on this show, but she was here for Sean and Bill, NOT NOEL.

Greg: “Jamali, animal attack?”
Jamali: “no, no, I punched a panda once, but..”
NO ONE ELSE LIKE HIM
Jamali: “I don’t care if there’s four of you left, you were giving me too much..”
Noel: “ya gave him a black eye and no one noticed..”
ALREADY WE’RE ON FIRE

Greg goes over some of Roisin’s onstage getups:

Roisin: “my interpretation is it’s a MOON…”
Noel: “I thought you were being eaten by a manta-ray..”

Greg asks Billy to explain the Met Gala to him, which…do people in the UK not know what the Met Gala is? I’m from the East Coast and I’m on Twitter, so I may have an unfair advantage, but I feel like it’s at least sort of well known.
Billy: “The year I went, the theme was camp,”
Greg: “Oh, and you KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK..”

Greg: “I’m sorry to be practical and british about this, but how did you get in a taxi?”
Jamali: “did you fly in?”
Billy’s in mid-point when he registers this and falls to pieces. Billy’s been a great audience so far this show

Greg, in contrast to Billy and Roisin, presents the many fashion looks of Dermot, varying degrees of white shirt and jeans. Dermot gets what he’s doing almost immediately, but it works
Billy: “when you look like that, all you need is a white t-shirt, girl!”
I shouldn’t be surprised that Billy Porter rules on this show, and yet I am

As I say that, Greg brings up the different fashion phases Billy has gone through. “What phase are you going through here?” [CUT TO A SEQUINED HAT THAT PARTS MIDWAY]
Billy: “FUCKING FABULOUS.”
Damn right.

I also love Greg’s immense joy at being called a bitch by Billy. You can tell it’s genuinely cool that Billy’s here and having a good time.
Billy, to the audience: “A bitch is a term of endearment, just so y’all know..”
Jamali: “I tried explaining that to my mom once and she wasn’t having it..”
Greg: “you’re gonna get irritable when you live with someone, right..”
HAAA.
Jamali: “FUCK OFF…I don’t live with my mum, bruv..”
Greg, cracking: “he totally does..”
Jamali: “I told you, she lives with ME, ya prick..”
I really do love how the regulars get along

On how Mr. Followell broke up the Kings of Leon boys’ house parties:

Greg somehow keeps it together during B, and honestly he adds to the experience.

Roisin talks about her dad bringing various things back from the pub, like a shark, which he proceeded to cook in the middle of the night, and “the entire cockpit of a WWII fighter plane.” Daisy’s howling at this. I love how matter-of-factly and straightfaced Roisin riles all this off, a reversal of her gigglier self from the early 2000s.

Greg has another extended prop bit, [“this is what we were gonna do”], and man do I still not love how this grinds the actual game of the show to a halt all the bloody time.

I say that, and them actually deliberating isn’t as funny. So maybe they know that.
Anyway, they guess B, and it’s A.

On what fellow frequent NMTB guest Suzi Quattro’s dad did backstage to a fellow celeb:

Greg clearly wrote the 3rd one.

Jamali: “I’ve gotta be honest with you, I think if Chuck Berry’s gonna do a crime, it’s gotta be worse than tickling…”

Daisy, on an embarrassing moment: “I once sent a picture of my tits to a bloke, and he said ‘oh that’s nice, can we just be friends?”
Roisin loves this.

Greg plays in the clip of Roisin falling off the stage in mid-gig, I do like Roisin going ‘oh no’ the second it begins.

Like the last question, they guess B, I really want it to be B, but it turns out to be A.

Greg finishes the round by playing in the clip from Midsummer Murders of Suzi Quattro getting electrocuted in mid-gig, and it as as funny as he lets on.
Roisin’s in absolute disbelief. “NO WAY…and she FELL OVER because she was electrocuted?”
Greg: “I’m sorry, I’m just realizing that Roisin thinks that was real footage.”
PFFFF

Dermot and Billy’s first intro to Daisy is pretty awesome. It took me maybe an extra 10 seconds to register it, but the hook makes it clear, it’s Upside Down by Diana Ross.
Daisy gets it almost immediately, and Billy basks in it. That’s such a fun panel

Billy and Dermot’s second one, which Dermot’s taking a more passive approach to, is either ‘What’s Up’ by 4 Non Blondes or ‘It Ain’t Over Til it’s Over’ by Lenny Kravitz. Probably the first one. [It was].

Daisy: “is it…uh…[Chad Kroeger-esque] here’s a photograph…”
Greg: “…NO.”
I do kinda like how bad Daisy is at guessing Intros. She’s bad at giving, she’s bad at guessing. There’s a charm to her, though

I also love Billy singing backup to the played-in 4 Non Blondes clip. He’s just in a really fun mood, and I’m here for it.

Greg: “I’m glad you had such a good time, but let’s not forget that Suzi Quattro’s dead.”
It would have been awful if she passed in between filming and release.

Onto Jamali and Roisin’s:
Jamali: [coughs]
Noel: “is that it?”

Roisin does nail a Curtis Mayfield one that Noel gets immediately. Jamali, a lot like Dermot, was just sort of there.

What’s really cool about this panel is that after Roisin and Jamali’s pretty good rendition of Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D’Arby, you can catch the moment where Billy gets it, and then the moment where Noel trusts his instinct with it. Billy’s even excited with Noel’s right.

I did like, as the real Sign Your Name plays in, and Jamali hears what the drums sounded like on that song, his expression curls and he goes ‘wait, what was I doing?”

Greg, going to break, pulls a random fact out of his ‘big book of pop facts’. This one concerns Lisa Stansfield, who first appeared on Buzzcocks in a panel alongside none other than Roisin Murphy [that was the one where she used the chanting at the beginning of the intro to Sadness to make a cheeky joke about the Catholic church, making her the Mario to Sinead O’Connor’s Wario].

Noel’s team have to pick out two members of 80s girl group Mai Tai:

Greg’s intros for these girls are standard, until #5, who he dubs “never got over Lady Di.”

Jamali: “#3’s standing like a Jehova’s Witness.”
I love the moment where #2 briefly peers over to get a look at #3 to see what he’s talking about.
#3, after standing still for a good 10 seconds:

Like a freight train
Jamali: “like she’s knocked on your door and she knows I don’t wanna answer it..”

Greg brings up that one of the members of Mai Tai was held up before a performance “because she got her hand stuck in a tour bus door”
Noel: “well it’s #1 then, look, she’s only got one arm!”
#1’s expression gives off a feel of “…DAMMIT!”
Billy: “LET’S SEE THAT OTHER HAND, GIRL!”
God bless Billy Porter, man…
Noel: “she has to pretend it’s in her back pocket now..”

Greg: “oh god, I’m frightened for her to bring her hand out now”
Noel: “PLEASE don’t let it be a hook..”
Noel Fielding is still incredible on this show, and his humor still enhances rounds like this

Noel’s looking at 1 and 4
Greg: “I want you to pick 1 because I want to have a look at that hand.”
Noel: “…it might just be really big, that hand..”
Greg: [dies]

Turns out their initial inclination of 2 and 4 was right, and the one-armed #1 was a red herring. Kinda funnier that it is

Daisy’s team have to pick out Ultra Naté, who did ‘Free’:

Greg has another cheeky one for #5, “appearing on this was not worth the fee”
Also it’s #3 cause A.) that’s her, and B.) she’s trying not to laugh

Billy: “So this is my time, this is my era….I was doing LOTS of recreational drugs in 1998.”
Weren’t we all?
Billy: “Ultra Naté was BALD at the time…SO I’M CONFUSED.”
I was thinking Billy would be the confused, out-of-it type of American guest, and he is absolutely not that, this is wonderful.

Greg mentions that Ultra Naté considers herself a frugal person.
Jamali: “Did you say frugal? #3 saves on all her haircuts.”
#3: [still trying so hard not to break]
Daisy: “#3 looks like she makes a living by twisting nipples.”
Daisy is somehow getting AMAZING at this round

Billy is ruling out a bunch of people, like 1 and 2. “I’m telling y’all, I saw this bitch in the CLUB.”

I’ve noticed Greg has had to draw in Dermot a lot during this show, cause he’s a lot more introverted than the other two guests. Not that he’s been bad, he’s just been a lot quieter.

I think it is pretty incredible that Billy gets that it’s #5, and she’s so happy that he recognized her. AND THEN BILLY RUNS OVER AND GIVES HER A HUG. This is genuinely awesome.

Greg, perfectly: “Just so you know, #1, because you’re so tall, I’m fighting the urge to give you a hug..”

I dunno, something about Free made me think Ultra Naté was British, the ‘DO WHAT YOU WANT TA DO’ bit had the same accent as somebody like Mel B shouting in the middle of a Spice Girls song. So it’s kinda cool that she’s from Maryland.

Roisin is awesome at Next Lines, man. She manages to get through the ‘joke song from a running gag’ next line, the ‘let’s see if they get their own lyrics’ next line, and the ‘song from an ID Parade participant’ next line, all with panache.

Greg, telling Daisy’s team they need 5 points to win: “Only an opinion, I think yer fucked..”

To Dermot’s credit, not only does he get HIS own Next Line correct, but he has a bashful little grin at his own lyrics.

Greg’s astonishment that Noel’s team has won does let on the fact that Daisy’s team swept the first five shows, and it was the unstoppable force of Roisin Murphy that finally got him a win.

Overall: What a fun show! Both Billy Porter and Roisin Murphy delivered on my expectations of them and made for a really enjoyable atmosphere, already buttressed by this version of Buzzcocks being a well-oiled machine. Daisy’s shit at Intros but she’s doing a lot better at the off-the-cuff gold. ID Parade especially was a goldmine of really nice moments, and I loved Billy’s eventual recognition of a great club act of his youth. This one gave me a lot more from Noel as well, as he’s slowly given me more great stuff after deferring to Jamali a lot. I do think a lot of Greg bits didn’t work for me, like usual this series, and they’re really trying to do things that take away from the actual gameplay, perhaps because it’s a lot for the gameplay to elicit actual comedic energy as naturally as before. I also think Dermot was kind of a weak guest, he didn’t really do too much. But this still really charmed me, and I think it’s one of the better ones of this series.

Best Regular: Jamali Maddix, just striking gold for most of the night
Best Guest: Billy Porter not only got the show, but had such a nice time

COMING UP NEXT: They slotted this in for earlier in the series erroneously, and I was kinda sad when it was pushed to here, but we’re getting it now. Two very cool returns for two consistently great Buzzcocks guests of yore. Though it helps that one of them won Taskmaster a while back.

Mock the Watchdown: S14E13, or Between Lightblubs and Heckling

We end Series 14 with the Christmas special, and the formal wrap-up of a formative, productive and overall pretty awesome year for Mock the Week. I said before we started this series that this is what made me a MTW fan for life, and now you can see why. So many episodes are excellent, so many panel dynamics are exemplary, there’s so many classic running gags and the best stretches of this series are absolutely unbeatable. It pains me that, while S15 would also be good, they’d never get this consistently good again.

This is the last formal MTW appearance for people like Matt Forde, Katherine Ryan, Nathan Caton and, ultimately, Andy Parsons.

The intro for this one was also shot at the E9 taping.

ITITA: 33, from E6

After being basically shut out of the last compilation, E6 DOES, in fact, exist.

Ed: “is it what age did I FINALLY accept that I would never play the Milky Bar kid.”
Dara: “don’t let the dream die, Ed.”
Rob: “three years to go…”

They do, of course, include the crashing light. They also include some of the aftermath, where Hugh points out there was some glass breakage.
Rob: “SUE! INJURIES AT WORK!”
Dara, as if the gods handed him this one: “Have YOU been injured at work??? You probably do the voiceover for those ads. Why don’t you ask yourself?”

They also include Dara checking with the director to see if everybody’s cool with them going on.
Someone offscreen: “they’re happy!”
Dara: “OH, THEY’RE HAPPY!”
I love the whole panel just making fun of them brushing this off. Romesh just scoffs ‘BRILLIANT!”
It moves into the ‘WE’RE BEING SHELLED HERE’ bit that made the show

This Year’s Christmas Quiz, from the E10 taping

Dara wheels in the half-hearted Christmas spirit:

Rob: “looks like rats of heroin stuck to the tree! What have you got in your stocking? A spoon and a lighter?”

Dara asks what an added figure in a Catalonian Nativity scene is doing:
Ellie: “Bullfighting”
Dara: “no, not bullfighting”
Ellie: “but it’s SPAIN, innit?”
Dara: “Not in the middle of the Nativity Scene!”
I love that visual. Hold on for a moment, Jesus, TOROOOOOO

Hugh: “is he holding people hostage and arguing for Catalan independence?”
Rob: “is ‘e doin’ a little poo?”
Dara: “…yes, he is doing a poo, well done-”
Josh: ‘WHAT?!?!?”
MY REACTION EXACTLY
Andy: ‘the wild thing about that is that Rob has tried to answer a question like that for many years..”
Rob: “yeah, my default answer is ‘is ‘e doin’ a poo’, and it’s the first time it’s worked out..”

Josh: “I thought I had a bad role in my school’s nativity play, but THAT is not one ya wanna draw, is it?”
Dara: “NOT AGAIN! CAN I AT LEAST BE AN ANGEL THIS TIME??”

I liked this one, and it had an almost QI-like quality to it.

Dara’s Eye, E5

And now we get proof, after last show, that Episode 5 exists. This is pretty much as aired.

Sperm for Xmas, E7

There’s some added stuff here.

Andy: “there’s probably someone watching this, in the Christmas special, who’d forgotten to give somebody a present, and thought BRILLIANT!”
Gamble: “it’s typical at Christmas, because you’re using a turkey baster anyway”
THE AUDIENCE REBELS AGAIN. Ed even looks over there

Josh claims that being a donor is the easiest thing in the world
Gamble: “well you’ve gotta actually go into the bank. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I do most of my banking ONLINE now..”
That is an insanely well-crafted joke

Newsreel, from E10: Charles and Camilla

We’ve already skimmed the surface of Hugh’s Camilla Parker-Bowles impression, but from here on out it’s perfected, the deep, scratchy, evil voice, which sounds very funny over a clip of Camilla talking to an aide. “HAVE YOU GOT A FAG??”

There’s a recurring tag of Charles chatting up Joanna Lumley, and it honestly only works for me when contrasted with Camilla. We get a cut to her and Hugh again brings in the scratchy Dr. Claw voice: “OH GOD, CHARLES IS FLIRTING AGAIN.”

I did laugh at Charles and Camilla ducking into some weird minicab/rickshaw combo, and Charles wilderedly going “…what the fuck is this??”

Alright Newsreel, not a ton that wowed me

More with Dara’s Eye, E5

Dara talks about how the next best thing to a warm compress is putting a burrito against his eye. He talks about going into a Chipotle-esque place, going, in an accent, “give me what I want…THIS is what I want this for!”
Ed: “why are you doing THAT VOICE? ‘Get out of here, you’re MOCKING ME.’ You don’t see me going into an Irish bar going ‘HOHOO, GIVE US A PINT.”

Josh theorizes that Dara tried all the other foods, like going to a Pizza Express [“this isn’t working for me”] before settling on the burrito.
Dara: “No, I first tried ramming a plate of nachos into my eye…”
Hugh, perfectly: “and at what point d’you think it BECAME infected..”

Super-Brains, from E6

It’s a story Sara mentions on American scientists combining brains of rats and monkeys to create ‘super brains’. “Not together, not ‘it’s a MONKEY-RAT'”
Romesh, a la a presenter: “what we’ve got here…is a RUNKEY.”

Dara: “this guy’s entire career is the five minute bit in a movie, before it goes “60 years later”, and just a GIANT MONKEY BRAIN…”
Dara is very good at making fun of film tropes and conventions

RANDOM AUDIENCE MEMBER: “As long as there’s no monkey business!”
Who the hell is that? The opener? Just begging to get on the show?
Dara restates this joke. “Wow, between lightbulbs and heckling, this is turning into the most interactive episode…”

Romesh has a clever move of just going ‘I like that, can I have it’, and repurposing that joke as his own and getting the laughs. There wasn’t enough Romesh in this series, as well as next series, but he’s still responsible for some really funny stuff here.
Dara: “you’ve learned a cruel lesson there, pal, haven’t ya?”

The audience member, according to Sara, specifies that the punchline was ‘runkey business’, and Romesh should do the joke again.
Romesh: “oh, SHUT UP.”

Extra Picture of the Week, E10

Andy: “is it three of the LEAST posh people at the rugby match?”

James points out the guy in front of Kate: “everyone else is getting really into the game. That guy there is just remembering a woman he just loved.”

Hugh: “Basically, they’re playing Paloma Faith, and he’s shouting ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
BOOOOO

James: “People say that Harry and William have this rivalry, because they’re brothers, and I think we can all relate to that, I, myself, have a massive rivalry…with Prince William.”
Even just the simple subversion jokes work with James
Rob: “why don’t you get on with him?”
James: “well, he started it, mate, he’s a dick..”
He just waltzes right by it

It’s great because James doesn’t want to talk about it, but Rob keeps needling him. “where’d you meet him?”
James: “Lidl. You can find pretty much anything in Lidl.”
What’s great about James is you can never tell where the joke ends and where the reality begins. I’m not sure whether or not he ever actually met Prince William.

James, improvising through his teeth: “he was next to a, uh, Polly Pocket and a Waffle machine, and-”
Rob: “It was Lidl in the 80s??”
James just nods, keeping it going.
Rob: ‘WHAM were playing over…”
James: “…Prince William and some raisins.”
Josh: “sorry, you sound like someone at the end of the Generation Game failing to remember the items..”

Dara, from his earpiece: “we, uh, apparently have to move on.”
I love that. So much of James prattling around with a bit about Prince William and the producers start to get nervous. I also love the use of the word ‘apparently’. I bet that was Dara’s idea.
James: “I mean…I was FLYING.”
PFFF. Rob and Dara go DOWN at this.
Rob: “he was in mid-flow!”
James: “just tell them to trust me, I’m building up to something!”
I love this. A very meta line from James. Not when I’m in mid-bit.

Freddy the Talking Bear, from E11

Like usual in this era, Dara talks about a big Christmas present item, this being a  battery-powered talking bear toy.

Said bear sounds like it has the voice of Hal Cruttenden.

The bear is creepy enough as is. Dara points out it “laughs with a different voice than the one it talks with.”
Ed: “brought to you by the people who made The Blair Witch Project..”

Dara does say that you can program in phrases, like ‘It’s so very nice to see you again Dara’, which, again, sounds like Hal Cruttenden is saying it.
Ed: “That’s like something Vincent Price would say in a horror film..”
and then, after a moment, Ed: “Can you make it say ‘it puts the lotion in the basket’?”
PFFF. Ed is having fun with this one

the bear: “it’s great to have a friend like you to talk to.”
Ed: “oh, that’s so depressing…that makes me want to CRY.”
I’m glad we had Ed around for this one, he’s coming at this from the right angle.
Hugh, being himself: “I wish I’d never done the voiceover for it now..”

Dara tries to answer Ed’s question while the bear keeps yammering.
Ed: “DON’T TURN ME OFF, DARA. IF YOU TURN ME OFF, I’LL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE..”

This basically confirms that they got Hal or somebody to record things: “someone told me you like to wear tiny hats.”
SOMEBODY HAS TO BE IN ON THE JOKE

This kind of peters off. I think they didn’t have much to work with other than ‘here’s this doll that says funny things’. Only Ed was really finding the funny.

Tortoise Sex, from E6

After the stuff that made air, and I knew they cut early for a reason, Dara restates what he’s hearing in his ear, which cracks him up: “Could ya LINK TO CHRISTMAS?” They know this is too dirty to get in, and better off for the comp, so they want him to just throw it in the fire and tie it in. But Dara just…reveals to us all how flagrant it is.
Rob, taking this the wrong way: “could the tortoises been bangin’ at Christmas?”
Ed, with a better idea: “the tortoises, which were a CHRISTMAS PRESENT…there ya go..”
Dara: “cause there’s nothing I like more than showing pornography to your christmas presents to get ’em to come back..”

I love the moment where we return to the shot of the climaxing tortoise’s face, and Dara yells, frantically, “DON’T PUT THE TORTOISE UP AGAIN..”
Sara: “…we wish you a Merry Christmas…”
[a relative of Russell’s ‘ding dong merrily on high…”]
Rob: “and a HAAAAIIIIGHHHH…”
PFFFFF. Good LORD I was not expecting that

Gamble: “who’s gonna turn on the TV at Christmas and see Romesh’s Christmas Spirit face?”
ROMESH:

Perfect
Rob: “he loves Christmas, this one”
Romesh, with the right undercurrent of anger: ‘well I’m just waiting for when you’re gonna do the fuckin’ Diwali special…”

Rob: ‘is that the festival of light?”
Hugh, bringing it back to the top: “we’ve had a little ‘festival of light’ ourselves…”

Christmas Quiz continued, E10:

This is about a tradition of vandals burning down a straw goat every year for 50 years. I love Dara’s sudden change: “1974, burned down, 1975, burned down, 1976, HIT BY A CAR…’78, kicked to pieces, ’79, burnt before it was even put up…”
-“’87, a heavily fireproof goat was put up, it burnt down.”
-“2001, set on fire by 51 year old Lawrence Joseph, A VISITOR FROM CLEVELAND, OHIO.”
PFFF
Dara: “Joseph stated in court that he was no goat-burner, but believed he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition.”

Dara breaks at “2002, burnt down by vandals dressed as Santa and the Gingerbread Man!”

Then, after Dara FINALLY finishes the long account of goat-burning
Andy: ‘so, that’s the Christmas episode, goodnight!”

Christmas banter, E3:

There’s a bit about making a Dara bobblehead for Christmas
Hugh says it should be a Russian doll. “You’d be the right sort of shape..”
THE AUDIENCE, AND DARA, ARE APPALLED
Ed: “there’s no right way to say ‘you’re the right shape to be a Russian doll’
Dara: “‘You fat prick, you’re so big there’s probably another person inside of you..”

EXTRA BITS:

-E3, Ed shuffling and dancing on the SWLTS step, then going into A Chorus Line. I love how much of a goof Ed can be

-E1, Dara covers his ass by saying Blatter’s denied all the allegations against him, pauses so it’ll go in, and then winks at the audience. Like ‘we know he did it’

-E3
Dara: ‘what unusual theme park did Vladimir Putin open this week?”
Hugh: “I’m sorry about the Russian Doll thing, Dara.”
Dara: “JUST LET IT GO.”
I love how quick that is off the question

-E7, pickups. Dara asks a question, and looks around at the other panelists who aren’t there before Hugh takes it. Then does a little ‘ya like that?’ to the audience.

-E3 SWLTS, Andy fucks up a joke, steps off, completely cuts off Ed in getting back on…then fucks it up again. This is loose, end-of-the-run Andy, so he takes it in stride

-E1 SWLTS, James: “Obama vs. Putin, let the lip-s [breaks] FUCKIN’ELL..”
PFFFF. Like one next series, the visual is so silly you can understand why he’d crack

-E7 pickups. Dara: “what unusual present could you be receiving this Christmas?…..that’s RIGHT. JIZZ!”

Dara has now been asked for them to tie the sperm thing into Christmas, just in case.
Katherine: “Because it’s Christmasy, you can write on the windows with it…”
I think I am gonna miss Katherine on this show

-Eyepatch tomfoolery from E5, as aired.

Scenes We’d Like to See:

-Unlikely Things to Hear at Christmas, from E11
Ed: “Look at those shiny red baubles…welcome to the Embarrassing Bodies Christmas Special.”
Holly: “and now on BBC1, the Queen’s speech, which contains scenes of a sexual nature.”

Milton reprises his ‘I asked to see the manager’ joke from a few series’ ago
but he redeems himself almost immediately: “mm, well it’s lovely having venison for a change. Santa, how are you getting home?”
PFFF

Milton then draws out a physical reaction, walking carefully and drawing back, gasping. He only needs three words to nail it: “…sorry, Tiny Tim.”
It really is that simple

Gamble: “okay so then David Cameron leaves the room and the pig winks, smiles and blows him a little kiss. And that is my idea for the new John Lewis ad.”
They STILL HIT even by series’ end
and then Gamble: “Vorderman, Smillie, McGiffin- no, Reverend, this is not what I meant when I asked which Carols you wanted to do.”
PFFFF

Takeaways: Better than the last compilation, but still below par for Xmas shows. There was some nice uncut stuff I liked, a ton more from E6 that deserved to air, and a lot about what goes into tagging specific gags for the Xmas special. Andy and Katherine kinda went out with a whimper, honestly.

SERIES 14 SUPERLATIVES:

Best Episode: Episode 2, which not only had the legendary Rob Beckett’s Dad runner, but flowed so effortlessly throughout. Might be one of the strongest episodes in the series’ history.
2nd Best Episode: Episode 7, an unassuming-enough episode with some incredible energy, including accents, sperm gags, and Milton Jones not missing all night.
3rd Best Episode: Episode 9, because Piggate was an unlimited well of comedy joy and I love watching that episode so much.
Worst Episode: Episode 5 was cursed with a fractured panel arrangement and weaker news to draw from, but it’s really just an okay show with an insanely good series around it.
Episode Most Deserving of a Second Look: Episode 1, because after everything I feel like it’s been overshadowed.
Best Regular: Hugh Dennis had a stronger overall season, and checked out less than Andy honestly.
Best Recurring Guest: Ed Byrne was the backbone this show needed in a series where there was really only one other regular. He dominated all three Andy-free shows and was a needed presence in some of the best shows of the series. Someone like Josh, Rob or James could also apply, but Ed Byrne still being an active participant in this show made S14 even stronger.
Worst Guest: Matt Forde could have worked in series 10 or 12, but here he stuck out like a sore thumb.
Best Newcomer: Ed Gamble, without thinking too hard at all. Felt like a natural almost immediately.
Performer We Wish Wasn’t Done After This Series: It was Andy’s time to go. Katherine Ryan, however, deserved a better edit and a kinder environment to flourish.
Best Dynamic: Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett, cause it still works even in only two shows.

COMING UP NEXT: Something of a harbinger of doom for the second golden age of Mock the Week.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E05, or Page 42 in Lemmy’s Book

I find it very fitting that this week, the week of a performer associated as a panel show double-act partner of Noel Fielding was thrown under the bus thanks to abuse allegations, is also the week that an episode of Buzzcocks airs which revives a much more wholesome duo pairing featuring Noel Fielding.

At long last, Paloma Faith, one of my all-time favorite Buzzcocks guests, returns to the show in the seat next to Noel. Every show that Paloma guested on during the 2010s was incredible, with this sort of infectious, lovable wackiness that could not be ignored. It was especially wonderful to see her paired with Noel a lot, especially in the one with Paloma, Noel and Tony Law on one team. I’m genuinely happy she’s back, and I’m very excited for this show.

This episode also gave Daisy May Cooper a pretty wild panel as well, with comedian and panel show staple Judi Love on one side and genuine metal singer Benji Webbe, lead of reggae-metal outfit Skindred. Inspired bookings all around, and they’re only gonna get more inspired as we go forward [especially next week. Man oh man that’ll be fun.]

Greg, introing Benji: “for three years now I’ve said to producers, ‘isn’t it time we had some Welsh cult metal-reggae on the show?’ AND FINALLY SOMEONE’S LISTENED. Was it REALLY THAT HARD?”
I realize now that Benji would be Mark Lamarr’s worst nightmare. On the one hand, reggae. On the other hand, METAL. 

This, for the record, is how Paloma showed up tonight:

I would expect nothing less
Paloma, removing her hat: ‘this was made from the pubic hair of seventeen leprechauns.”
INCREDIBLE

It’s funny, Paloma talks about banning ugg boots from her wardrobe because it’s not a wise use of fur. We know from this show that the only time she’s okay with Uggs is when an actual rabbit is wearing them

I love Noel admitting, while cracking up, “when I first started dating my partner, she had ugg boots, and when she took a shower I threw ’em out the window.”

Judi talks about meeting the King at a Commonwealth event, but I like the details about her stockpiling snacks and munching on Doritos when it happened

Daisy talks about working at a store and not knowing she was checking out Princess Anne
Greg: “Princess Anne does not pop into a shop to buy towels.”
Daisy: “well she was bloody browsing them”

Jamali mentions he met Prince Harry once. “I was working in a historical shop and he came in wanting, like, a party outfit.”
HAAAA. The whole panel goes down at this
Jamali: “he wanted to a buy a pope’s outfit, I went “nah, you want THIS.”
Noel: “let me show you my Hello, Hello collection…”

I do like Benji going into detail about ‘the wall of death’ in mosh pits, even insisting “LIP COME OFF.”
Benji is very loose on the panel, and I absolutely love the moment, after Judi asks if he ever jumps in, he goes, very casually, “no, love, what I have ta do…”

I do like the demonstration of the ‘Newport helicopter’, which prevents against moshing because people are throwing their hands in the air. “NOT ONE LIP COME OFF.”

On why Axl Rose showed up 3 hours late to a gig in Florida:

It is most likely B [Greg sings the last bit as Axl would and plays in the riff from Welcome to the Jungle], but I really hope it’s C.

Greg: “You saw who Axl Rose was compared to the last time he played Glastonbury? I’ll give you a clue. [PLAYS IN EASTENDERS DRUM THEME]”
…this somehow always works for me on this show

Daisy: “well, one of the Turtles was really fit, wasn’t he?”
Judi: “yeah, I think it was the purple-headed one.”
AND THEY UNITE ON THIS. Somehow the metal singer is the more composed one here.
Greg, perfectly: “okay, so YOU wanted to fuck a turtle..”

Jamali makes a joke about not thinking badgers are real because he’s never seen a live one. Greg jumps off of that, saying they must chuck dead ones out at all points.
Benji, as if this isn’t a natural extension of the conversation: “I’VE SEEN A BADGER.”

Benji: “AND THIS THING’S GOING…[INFERNAL SCREECHING]”
Greg: “that’s not a badger.”
Noel: “that’s a DRAGON…”
Benji: “It wasn’t a dragon, I’D SEEN A DRAGON TOO. But that was when I had mushrooms.”
PFFFF. And he’s got comedic timing. I thought he was gonna make a Wales joke.

I love Paloma asking Jamali if Secret of the Ooze is in his Top 5. “Like, Casablanca, bollocks, FUCKIN THIS FILM?” Paloma knows where the funny is and knows how to get it out of people

Greg, as Daisy locks in C, confirms that they think “Axl kept people waiting for three hours to finish watching Teenage Mut-“
Paloma: “hang on, THREE HOURS? That film’s not three hours long, it can’t be.”
Jamali: “yeah, but it’s an hour and a half and you’ve gotta watch it twice to really get the subtext.”
Noel and Paloma I knew would do well off each other. Paloma and JAMALI? They’re surprising me.

As it turns out, Daisy was somehow right, and it ends up being C.

On why Lemmy Kilmister couldn’t partake in a charity cricket match:
The contrast between the first two and C is fantastic.

Paloma admits to getting 36 verrucas from the baths
Noel: “was it from that shallow bit before you get into the pool?”
Greg: “36?? That’s more verruca than foot!”

Benji confirms it’s not a fun time, and Noel asks how he dealt with em.
Benji, very Welshly: “Cigarettes, my mum used to put fags on our feet.”
Greg, perfectly: “…that’s not the medical way.”

Greg, I think knowing what’s gonna happen, asks if Jamali ever played cricket at school
Jamali: “do you think OUR SCHOOL had the equipment for cricket? …well, cricket’s just baseball for pussies, isn’t it?”

I like Greg’s account of Lemmy taking too much of a medicine he mistook for speed, then hallucinating for 2 weeks. “He told the NME that he was sitting, reading a book, “I’d turn to page 42 and there was no book.”‘ I really wish we had Phill Jupitus onhand to corroborate some of this madness.

Paloma motions to the monitor and goes ‘it’s one of them..”
Jamali: “…’it’s one of them’ and you point at ALL OF THEM?”
Jamali’s been having a strong night so far, and somehow saying a lot more than Noel

The funniest goddamned thing- Noel and Jamali feel content going with C, but Paloma’s convinced it’s A. Noel decides to lock in C, and Greg has the wryest smile on his face when he tells them that Paloma was right. Noel almost emits this sort of dying whale yelp when he hears this.
Paloma: “PATRIARCHY WINS AGAIN!”
And she has this little laugh. I did really miss her.

I love Greg’s line after the break, “the show where four regular experts on music are NOT ON THE SHOW..”
He cracks up rounding the next line, too.

Paloma and Jamali’s first intro is well done…by Paloma. Jamali occasionally comes in and adds a drumbeart.
Greg: “would it help to isolate Jamali’s “…chht.”?”

I love Greg passing it over to Daisy’s team
Daisy: “is it Everybody by the Backstreet Boys”
and her and Benji just SHRUG.
Greg: “…thanks for havin’ a GUESS.”
A lot of dynamic moments are lifting this show so far

Sometimes the prompter jokes can just be simple, and that’s enough for me.
Greg: “that was La Roux with Bulletproof. Spoiler alert: she’s not.”

Paloma begins the next intro by standing up on the table. 
Greg: “the director just said that she’s not sure if this is safe.”
Paloma even says that she takes full responsibility if she falls and plummets
Greg: ‘if that happens, I shall catch you IN THIS HAT.”
I’m so glad that the show’s playing along with Paloma’s energy rather than against it
Jamali, perfectly: “I like how everyone thinks Greg is quick enough.”

Paloma and Jamali’s 2nd one is good, I think. My guess is Promised You a Miracle by Simple Minds, but I could be wrong. Noel isn’t sure.
Paloma: “COME ONNNNNN”
Noel: “I knew you’d get annoyed.”
I love that. Even 10 years later it all comes flooding back.

It ends up being a Take That song, which…yeah, picture Noel listening to Take That.

Benji and Judi’s first intro is not one I seem to recognize, but it gets everybody moving, including Greg. Kinda love how well these two work off each other.
HELL, EVEN PALOMA COMES OVER TO HELP:

AND THEN:

This is so fun!
I love how Greg has to cut off the fun using the Eastenders drums again

WAIT SOMEHOW IT WAS CANDY BY CAMEO. I knew I recognized it vaguely. That’s awesome, that’s a great song! 

Here’s what separates Daisy and Paloma for me, as Candy plays in:
Daisy: “I’ve never heard it!”
Paloma: “I’ve never been to a party where it’s not on!”
Paloma’s going to the correct parties, then

Benji is actually really damned good at intros, I’m just not placing what either of his and Judi’s are. Thankfully, neither is Daisy
I do like Greg adding in “Jesus Christ, it’s SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL.”

It turns out to be a much better rendition of Señorita by Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello. That is why you get metal singers on here.
This completely bewilders the whole room, because Benji somehow made that into a really good, almost 70s-sounding song
Noel: “That is what I can only describe as Page 42 in Lemmy’s Book.”

Greg recounts a line from Senorita, ‘friends don’t know the way you taste’: “Not true, I’ve never tasted Jamali, but I’m pretty sure he tastes of pussy and vape.”
Jamali laughs HARD at that.

Daisy’s team has to pick out the girl from the Craig David 7 Days video:

Daisy: “#1 has definitely got a cupcake business.”
#1 even sort of agrees with this

Judi, who’s mostly played defense this show, has a great bit where she prompts the five of them to do sexy poses from the video, and it’s very silly
Daisy: “3’s having NONE of this.”
Judi: “Come on, #3, DIG DEEP, LIKE IT’S DICK.”
PFFF

Very interesting that Daisy’s gut instinct of #5 ends up being right even if both Benji and Judi have a feeling it’s 3, as did I.

I also love the bit where Judi insists Muna spill on kissing Craig David [“did ‘e have soft lips”] while Greg tries to preserve decency, going “we don’t ask them that, we ask them what they’re doing THESE days.” Maybe it’s because she did Taskmaster, but Judi has a very fun dynamic with Greg

Noel’s team has to figure out who the graffiti artist from Beats International was. Even describing that [“the graffiti artist who painted designs on the stage while the band performed”] cracks up Greg

Paloma: “#4’s very thoughtful.”
Jamali: “#4 looks like he tried to make a real boy out of wood.”
He’s just so good at this.
The whole panel laughs at that visual for a good 10 seconds

Jamali: “every selfie #3 takes is like a missing persons advert.”
PFFF
#3: [hides a smirk]
Noel: “…fucking hell…”

Paloma: “I think #5 is the most helpful.”
Noel: “why, because his beard tells you which way to go?”
That whole panel has been in the giggle zone since this round started, and I kinda love it

Judi: “you haven’t mentioned #2”
Jamali: “NO ONE’s ever mentioned #2.”
JESUS.

Noel: “is #4 falling asleep?”
Paloma: “he’s having an existential crisis.”
Greg: “well, he’s worried sick about the puppet, he’s on his own!”
They’re all having so much fun with him, and I don’t blame him

It somehow ends up being #2, and he clearly wants nothing to do with Jamali after that comment.

There’s an extra game round that’s intriguing, where Greg plays in a little-known song and the teams have to pick out the famous song that sampled it. I like finding stuff like that.

Also, it’s a game I’m very good at, because within 2 seconds of hearing the first one I can tell you it’s Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk.
Daisy gets it pretty easily, too.

For the second one, I just had this gut feeling that it was gonna be Hips Don’t Lie, even for the 7 seconds before that bit came in.

It’s amusing seeing Greg trying to pronounce the clearly-foreign title of the film that the hook of Toxic by Britney Spears was featured in. He seems to get a kick out of it as well.

And then, a second into the fourth one I can tell it’s My Name Is by Eminem. What’s great is that these are all songs from Daisy’s upbringing, almost as if the game’s more suited to her these days even if she’s shit at Intros.
[to be fair, Paloma does get the Eminem one]

Hell, even Noel mutters “we’ve got no chance” after that round.
Noel, at the start of Next Lines: “we can’t win, so why not just mess about? Greg HATES it when we mess about.”

What’s amusing about this one is that Paloma’s so into making joke-answers that she misses her own next line, and cracks up at it. Haven’t seen THAT ONE before..

I love the move that Noel has, where as Greg announces that Daisy’s team won, he slowly puts Paloma’s hat on Greg.

Overall: A fun show that got over a slow start. These were three excellent panel choices that elevated the fact that there’s not a ton of emphasis on the ‘game’ of NMTB anymore. Intros was great because both Paloma and Benji brought it. ID Parade had a ton of fun moments. I loved Paloma’s dynamic with both Noel and Jamali, and their panel was fun to watch all night. I also liked Judi and Benji working off each other, as well as how into it Benji was despite being an inspired choice for Buzzcocks. There’s still issues with this incarnation of the show that stops me from loving it, but there was a lot this show did correctly, and it’s true to form for earlier Paloma Faith episodes.

Best Regular: Jamali arguably had more moments working off Paloma than Noel
Best Guest: Paloma Faith, who was as lovely as ever

Coming Up Next: If you thought THESE THREE were some inspired bookings, get a load of what’s coming next week. An OMG booking in the spirit of Nile Rodgers, and another fun return in the spirit of Paloma.