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.

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.

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. 

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E04, or I Play This at all my Dogfights

Even if we’re still in the period if S31 before the bookings get really exciting [TRUST ME], the quality of panel arrangements has still been really strong this series, and this episode has a really nice one, even if they’re all newbies. Aside from requisite comedian Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, off of Derry Girls, and Stefflon Don, a rare black female rapper who doesn’t make Sky push her Buzzcocks episode indefinitely, we have, similar to Serge Pizzorno last year, a booking that seems like it should have happened years ago. Jake Shears’ Scissor Sisters bandmate Ana Matronic made multiple Buzzcocks appearances back in the day, even if Jake was the bigger name in the band. Now a solo artist, Jake’s finally able to do a show, and I have some high hopes for it knowing how well Ana’s went.

Greg, on Stef: “[she] once flirted with a drake, until a female duck shat on her head and quacked ‘YOU LEAVE MY MAN ALONE, YOU HUSSY’. Sorry, I read that wrong, she once flirted with DRAKE. [repeats punchline verbatim], that’s right, to be clear [CAMERA PAN IN] I’m saying Drake fucked a duck.”
Greg’s stuff can sometimes be a bit too much, but this works perfectly
Stef: “I was not expecting THAT intro..”
Noel: “you’re gonna get a lot of complaints from ducks now..”
Greg: “I stand by it. I…STAND BY IT, Drake fucked a duck.” [breaks]

Jake talks about starting his day with 8 shots of espresso, or really two 4-shot cappuccinos.
Jamali: “why not just do one line of coke, it’s the same thing?”
Jake also talks about the fact that this seems to shock people, but it’s normal to him
Jamali: “that leather jacket isn’t for fashion, you’re a bad fuckin’ boy, are ya?”

Greg asks Jamie-Lee how she differs from her Derry Girls character
Jamie-Lee, being Irish: “I’m not sixteen.”
Greg, being british: “you’re not sexting.”
Jamie-Lee: “SIXTEEN. Or sexting.”

Jamie-Lee: “I plan on being this Irish the whole rest of the way through, just so you know.”
Greg: “…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Now that you mention it, S31 has been relatively heavy on the Irish. We just had CMAT last week, and we’ve got two Irish people in an episode airing 2 weeks from now. Plus, we’ve had Australians and Welsh, we’re just going wild with accents. Don’t stop there, bring back Fish and Dave Johns!

Stef talks about playing the Jubilee a year or so prior.
Noel: “Just for a second, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I was playing drums..”

PFFFF. That looks like a cross between Noel and HarMar Superstar honestly

Greg: “You were one of the last pop stars the Queen saw before she died. Did you tell her to drop it down low?”
Look, all the criticisms I’ve had with new-Buzzcocks go out the window when we get lines like that
Stef: “You dunno what the Queen gets, I mean she has kids, innit…she knows a thing or two about droppin’ it down low..”
Jamali: “I mean, she DID…”
Of all people to bring us back to reality
They all take an extra five or ten seconds to respond to this

I still don’t see why we have to fill the first 5 or 6 minutes of the show with extraneous bits like Jamie-Lee doing the splits. If the game does what it’s supposed to do, you shouldn’t need to fill time.

Sure enough, Jamie-Lee is about to do the splits, and Greg’s able to cross his legs and walk with his knees
Jamie-Lee: “…and I’m still fookin’ single..”
Greg: “you and me both, sister..”

Greg: “Our first round is called
FATBOY SLIM CLIP: “I see you baby, shakin’ that ass”
Greg: “….istant.”
PFFFF. A play on what Rhod Gilbert used to do

On what Pink makes her assistant do before shows:
My guess is B. Just knowing her.
Also, Greg goes down midway through A, around the time he has to describe Pink as like ‘a hungry Staffy’

Jaime-Lee thinks it’s B
Jake: “I can’t imagine she likes to get whacked in the nipples.”
Daisy: “I DO.”

Daisy points out the Snickers/Marathon renaming, and Greg gives her shit for knowing that, especially considering that Greg’s older and remembers that. To their point, Jake doesn’t know what a Marathon bar is.
Greg: “I’m the only one who should remember Marathons, what, Uncle Horny and me?”
Jamali: “…did you call Noel ‘Uncle Horny’?”
Noel: “FUCK YOU, GREG!”
PFFFF

Greg: “how do you get pumped up for a show, Stefflon?”
Stef: “I say a nice prayer, and then I twerk.”
It really is that simple
Greg:

“….Jesus and twerking.”

I do like Greg not believing that Daisy’s team is going for B, and his bemusement that they end up being right. Yeah, Pink is more ‘fucked up’ than crazy, it makes too much sense.

On Stevie Nicks’ preferences:

Jake tells a story about meeting Stevie, and it’s a great story because it happened at Dave Grohl’s party, and Dave introduced them, and you get the sense that Dave and Jake are friendly, which is…very cool.
Noel talks about meeting Stevie when he was tight with Courtney Love. “I think at one point Carrie Fisher was there too. There were a lot of deep voices in the room that night..”

Jamali talks about a friend being on speed and weed at the same time.
Greg: ‘doesn’t that just make you normal?”
Jamali: “YOU WISH”
Noel: “that friend was me and it was before the show.”

After everything I was saying about the grandstanding in the opening, we actually get to Intros less than halfway through the show. Progress!

Noel finally takes aim at Greg’s repeated insistence that they need the title of the song, saying sometimes if he gets the right group Greg has a visible facial reaction. So in response, Greg turns around. I do like how the regulars interact here

Noel’s not able to get his team’s first intro, so Greg passes it over.
Daisy: “….TUPAC.”
Jamali: ‘no.”
PFFF

It turns out to be Let Me Blow Ya Mind, which…damn I was looking in the wrong place, then

Jamali and Stef’s 2nd intro is…not very musical, but you can get a piece of something how JAMALI of all people is leading. Stef, after a bit, just dances.
Greg: “Look at Stefflon…for no other reason than it’s fun to watch”

Noel: “I think you two think you’re better at this than you are.”
Greg: “I mean it’s not bad..”
Noel: “not bad?? This sounds like the air conditioning in my room..”

Greg throws it over
Daisy: “…Match of the Day?”
Greg: “…YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT.”
Reminded me of Sean Hughes there

Noel, when he hears that it was Lust for Life: “…OH MY GOD.”
Yeah, that wasn’t even close

Jamie-Lee, getting up: “this is gonna be shite..”
Greg: “that is NOT the attitude to start with..”

Okay. So. Jake gives Jamie-Lee an idea of the backing drumbeat, makes sure she goes, and then goes right into a flawless rendition of the guitar part from No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. Again, owing to Jake’s earlier anecdote, he knows Dave Grohl, and he lets Jamie-Lee, the more nervous intros-giver, do Dave’s part. The only thing is…WAS DAISY LISTENING TO QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE IN 2002?
Daisy after a few more runs: “…no fuckin idea.”
SURVEY SAYS: NO

Even stranger: Noel guesses Burn the Witch. HE’S GOT THE BAND RIGHT. But he instead guesses the single off the next album.

Ironically, no one knows No One Knows. I wish Greg could have seen the joke in that.

Greg has a quote from Josh Homme saying that music is one of the only things where there’s no rules. “There’s tons of things that have no rules, like dogfights and orgies, both of which I’ve personally experienced in Jamali’s hot tub.”
I love Jamali’s confusion at this

Jake and Jamie-Lee’s second intro is nearly there but they both aren’t really on the same page. Daisy really seems to think it’s Clocks by Coldplay [as did I], and Greg has to tell her it’s incorrect, even though she takes it to mean that the song title isn’t correct. Noel’s team is also trying to figure out which Coldplay song it is, which, HAH NOEL YOUR NEMESIS RETURNS.

Somehow, Jamali gets it right that it’s Dreams by the Cranberries. OFF OF THAT. Wild.
As the song plays in, Jamali’s going ‘I LOVE THIS SONG’, and nobody can believe he got it, especially Greg, who’s just going ‘fuck you, Jamali’.
Jamali: “hey, listen, I play this at all my dogfights..”

Ah yes, because the edit allows it, MICK HUCKNALL ROUND

Noel, muttered during the first one for Beyonce: “I’m terrible at this…is THAT Harry Styles?”

Also, props to Jamie-Lee for guessing Iggy Pop before Noel could

On the last one, which is Jared Leto at the Met Gala, Jake confers with Daisy
Daisy: “no, I don’t think it is him….he just goes ‘is it Simply Red?”

Daisy’s team has to guess which of these two were in A Touch of Class:

[oh yeah, ‘All Around the World’ made it over to the US, I remember this one]

Daisy: “Why are they dressed like the 1986 Challenger disaster?”
PFFF. A rare punchy one from Daisy. Jake is literally yanked back in his chair.

Jake does compliment the five men’s looks
Daisy: “they’re like a sort of regional Magic Mike”
PFFF. I love that Daisy’s whole panel gets along

Jamali: “#2 looks like a Viking in a bad low-budget movie.”
#2:  [breaks and then immediately tries to hide it]
Daisy: “#2 looks like an Ibiza DJ on the quiet part of the island.”
Oh god I love that

Noel: “these guys look like they’ve set up a business for visually impaired plumbers.”
PFFF. ALL OF THESE ARE SO SILLY
And what it is basically is that every time you can see that Jamie-Lee or Jake isn’t sure, Noel strikes again: “they look like they’re about to form a human tripod on a moped.”

It turns out that the one they weren’t sure about, #5, was right and the one they were always confident in, #2, wasn’t.

They play in the 911 song for Noel’s ID Parade, and Daisy starts literally fangirling. Greg refers to this as “the most excited I’ve ever seen Daisy May Cooper”, who has to fan herself as Greg intros them. Now we know why Daisy didn’t get this one.

This also means that Jimmy Constable, who appeared way back in S4 on a panel with Arthur Smith and Mel Giedroyc, has been Garlicked in this occasion

Greg: “are you a fan, any of you?”
Jamali: “Am I a fan of 9/11?”
OH THAT’S WHY THIS ONE CAME OUT THIS WEEK

I do like Stef admitting that 911 was before her time, Greg registering that someone isn’t old enough to remember 911, and going “….thankyou.”
Greg: “Noel?”
Noel: “…too young.”
The audience laughs at this
Noel, to the audience: ‘fuck you!”

Stef doesn’t think #2 has swag
Jamali: “I think #2 has swag, it looks like he dated Kerry Katona in 2003.”
PFFF. EVEN #2 IS SLIGHTLY CONFUSED AT THAT

Greg: “look at Daisy, normally she’s chipping in during this.”
Daisy: “I’m just trying to figure out which one I’m gonna shag afterwards..”

Jamali rebuts Stef’s claim that it’s #1, as there’s a palpable age difference between 1 and 4. “Unless they’re a father-son duo. They’re called 911 not Boyz II Men..”

Greg, about to let them step forward: “and I want them to get ready to run, because Daisy’s gonna be over that desk..”

It ends up being 1, 2 and 4.
Stef, to #1: “so how old are you then?”
Jamali: [head hits desk]
Turns out, he’s 50.
Jamali: “you’ve got the face of a baby and the eyes of a war veteran..”
#1 admittedly loves this

I love the moment during next lines where Greg gives Noel’s team a line from Take Ya Mama, and Noel points directly at Jake, who’s holding still and trying not to reveal anything. Also, Greg gives it to them despite Jamali not being especially coherent recounting those lyrics

Overall: Solid show. Maybe not quite as good as last week, but there was a lot coursing through this one, and a lot owing to the preestablished dynamics. To that end, there wasn’t one guest performance that stood out overwhelmingly, but all three were good. I could have used a bit more from Jake but he had fun. Jamie-Lee was on defense a lot. Stef I think was the most pivotal guest tonight, and I’m fine with that. I liked a lot of the natural bits here, like everyone not hearing that the intro wasn’t Coldplay, Noel as Uncle Horny, and the 911 ID Parade sequence. It wasn’t a big, bawdy show, but it was solid and steady and did what it needed to. I think more ‘middle of the road’ Buzzcocks’s should be like this one, rather than being forgettable or meh.

Best Regular: Noel did the most tonight
Best Guest: Stef got the most laughs

COMING UP NEXT: One of a few forthcoming shows featuring long-lost returning panelists from before the reboot. This one I’m especially excited for, because it re-pairs Noel with an old friend, and it leads to a really inspired booking on Daisy’s side.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E03, or This One Goes Out to the NHS.

In between some inspired bookings the series trailer showcased, we have a couple ‘Jordan doesn’t know what to say about this panel’ kind of shows, which are kind of par for the course with new Buzzcocks. I get that not every show can have an eye-opening panel, but sometimes the dropoff is pretty steep with this version. Again, the hope is that the panel can intrinsically make fun things happen here.

The panel we do have consists of Irish singer-songwriter CMAT, Calum Scott, aka the guy who hit the top of the charts with a cover of Dancing on My Own that Kyle Schwarber has been playing in the locker rooms to pump up the Philadelphia Phillies for the past two years. Also, Sam Campbell is our requisite comic, an Australian sort who’s gotten panel show gigs in the past.

Greg begins the show with a very silly Who joke that Mark Lamarr would have trashed his TV over.

Greg kids Calum about losing BGT to a dog act, and does the whole ‘he’s not bothered by it’ gag, “and you can download Calum Scott’s ‘Kick a Dog in the Dick’ on Spotify”. Calum does get a kick out of it though

Sam has a point about how he doesn’t like music where the singer just ruins the mood by talking about their personal problems. “Like when you’re in a cafe and you hear someone sing “man I just went through a breakup”, THAT’S PERSONAL.”
Greg, to the two very personal musicians on Daisy’s team: “I hope you two are fuckin’ listening…”
CMAT:

Already I like her

Greg makes Sam pick a favorite song
Sam: “uh, some of the National Anthems are pretty sick…”
I see what Sam’s trying to do, have this sort of more-negative-James-Acaster kind of thing, but it’s not entirely working for me

There’s so much subtle, unwritten stuff that works about Greg asking Calum about BGT. Him saying he doesn’t get tired of talking about it, then gritting his teeth admitting that he came sixth. Almost as if the Got Talent shows aren’t an accurate method of comparing talents against each other.
Greg: “d’you remember the five acts who beat you?”
Calum: [breaks]

I like Calum smirkingly trying to skew the narrative by saying that Matisse the tight-roping dog was actually two dogs, as a stunt-dog actually did the rope-walking
Jamali: “to be fair, any dog walking a tightrope is still sick.”

I do like Greg trying to wrap his head around all the artists CMAT likens herself to, including Glen Campbell, the Nolans, Dolly Parton, Weird Al Yankovic and Katy Perry. “What the FUCK is going on??”

Greg is confused by the fact that CMAT doesn’t like Gary Barlow. “Who doesn’t like Gary Barlow?”
A RANDOM AUDIENCE MEMBER: “ME.”
Noel: “…that WAS Gary Barlow.”

On Brian Johnson’s bizarre belief:

These writers must have so much fun with these

Also, this conspiracy theory round is aided by Greg having an X-Files theme buzzer. As Daisy talks about the journalist who saw the Loch Ness Monster and moved to the lake with a set of binoculars, he just fittingly smashes the button.

Jamali: “If I saw the Loch Ness Monster now I wouldn’t be impressed. Like, we’ve got a Playstation 5, I’ve seen enough..”

Jamali doesn’t think it’s A) because of how early most people have a roast dinner. “I don’t think he’d be on that many drugs at 12.”
Greg: “he might have been going [BRIAN JOHNSON VOICE] ALLL NIIIIGHT LONG…”
The audience somehow doesn’t respond to this one
Noel: “aw, that was a good AC/DC joke…we’ll put some laughter on THAT in the edit…”

Sam, perfectly: “well I think I’m from Austra-I mean, I KNOW I’m from Australia..”
I liked that better than the wired-in cynicism he was doing before

Greg, with the information that Brian Johnson is the one Geordie member of the band, tries the quote from A.) in that accent “Come intuh the CEEAAVE muh children..”. It sort of works

Calum brings up playing a song on Nat King Cole’s piano, and feeling a ghostly presence around it
Greg, downplaying him as a storyteller: “so what’s the story, you recorded a song and it felt a bit weird?”
Calum: “essentially-“
Greg: [X-FILES BUTTON]

CMAT talks about a medium telling her bandmate’s sister that he can never go to Chile. “If I go to Chile and his head explodes on entry, I don’t want that on me”
Jamali: “yeah, but you kinda wanna see it though…”

There’s a bit where Sam talks about chupacabras draining blood from livestock, and Greg talks about the likelihood of that happening.
Sam: “no, it’s in…Chile..”
CMAT: “My keyboard player who can’t go to Chile is literally a cattle farmer.”
GREG: [X-FILES BUTTON]
This thing is just saving jokes left and right

Noel gets the answer right, being an AC/DC fan and knowing B seems likely. I still have issues with how needlessly padded this round is, because there’s so many digressions and extra rounds and it’s barely even about the question.

On Tom DeLonge’s conspiracy of choice:
I was worried it was gonna be the obvious one, cause Tom’s clearly got a thing for UFOs, but apparently it’s one of his other ones. Pretty sure it’s A.

Daisy, not needing to say much to get laughs: “I’ve been on, like, a forum, right…where a lot of hikers say they’ve been mounted by a horny bigfoot….I wonder if I’ve seen the same picture as A on the forum..”

Daisy: “there’s a guy who says he’s found the corpse of a bigfoot, and is keeping it in his chest freezer.”
Greg, perfectly unconvinced: “oh really? Is he not letting anyone else see it?”
Daisy: “no, all he’s asking for is donations to keep the freezer cold..”
Greg, to Sam: “it’s probably got a DEFLATED COW..”

CMAT, like me, is aware of DeLonge’s big fixation: “All I know about Tom DeLonge is that he goes out hunting for aliens in the desert with Robbie Williams sometimes?”
I’m mad that nobody asked if that’s why she doesn’t like Gary Barlow

Calum: “all that’s going through my head is- bigfoot’s the big tall creature with loads of hair, right?”
Greg gives the audience a second to laugh at that juxtaposition, before going “CORRECT.”
Calum, redeeming himself: “I’m just thinking, if…bigfoot shaved…is he not just a big man?”
This is like a Jamali line
Noel: [POINTS AT GREG]
Greg: 
“…I can’t believe you’ve found me, I’ve been hiding in Loch Ness all these years..”

Sure enough, Daisy’s whole team agrees it’s A, and they’re right. If we pared this round down to just the cool deliberations it wouldn’t take 17 minutes.

Greg, for all of us, pre-Intros: “THANK GOD IT’S NOT DAISY PERFORMING.”
Daisy, to her credit: “aw, FUCK OFF.”

You see, this is why you get people who can do intros, because I get that CMAT and Calum’s first intro is This Love by Maroon 5 almost immediately
Daisy, however, has a great strategy of almost clucking out the verse melody phonetically til she gets to what the title is.
Greg: “if you tell me this song’s called ‘BRAAAAIIIIIGHHH..”

Daisy does get pretty much everyone singing along to the chorus [even Greg], which is a pretty fun moment

Greg has a filthy joke in response to Adam Levine’s sexts that gets the entirety of Daisy’s team with their heads on the desk

Again, I get that the second intro is Shut Up and Drive by Rihanna, and it’s mostly because CMAT does such an awesome job emulating the guitar part, complete with siren

Greg passes it to Noel’s team, none of whom know. “Just say any song.”
Sam, trying: “…Eat Your Arm Off?”

I love Greg praising CMAT and Calum for how awesome their intros were, and then just chuckling realizing that Sam and Jamali have to do theirs next.
Noel: “I might go and sit in the audience..”

Sam, about to go into the first one: “This one goes out to the NHS.”
He’s growing on me a little

And so:
Jamali: “[badly done, off-time guitar part] Sam do the fuckin drum bit mate [guitar part]”
Greg: “can I just say, when you hear what song this is you WILL NOT BELIEVE IT.”
All three of them are cracking up. They KNOW how pathetic this is

Greg: “You’re not gonna get it, say any song and then I’ll pass it over, they won’t get it and we’ll move on.”
Which is funny enough
Noel: “…is it the Prodigy?”
Greg: “it’s not the Prodigy, and that’s not a song.”

Greg: “you’re both wrong, it was-well, it WASN’T…..it was Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.”
PFFFF. That may have been the worst Intro in the show’s history, with that knowledge. That wasn’t even close.

Greg, pre-second intro: “You WILL know this song.”
Noel: “yeah, but I’ve got Zig and Zag singing it..”
PFFF
CMAT, perfectly: “not to namedrop, but I am close personal friends with Zig and Zag.”

So to give you an idea of how their second Intro went,:

That Charlie Brown’s teacher-esque thing was apparently The Man Who Sold The World. I miss Sean Hughes.

So this is an interesting one. Noel’s ID Parade has to pick out the lead singer of Stiltskin, Ray Wilson:

Now, fun fact about Ray Wilson: Ray Wilson was the third lead singer of Genesis. After Phil Collins left the band in the early 90s, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks put out an open call for a prog lead singer, found Wilson, as Inside had just broke big, and he recorded one album with Genesis, 1996’s Calling All Stations. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of it. It’s actually a very interesting sound, very befitting of mid-90s prog, but it wasn’t Phil or Peter, and the album tanked. Ray recorded vocals for ‘Carpet Crawlers 99’, a coda to the band’s catalog that featured Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins handling verses of the song, but Ray’s did not make the final cut. 
So uh…kind of wild that I can say that the lead singer of Genesis is in an ID Parade here. Also, pretty sure it’s #1.

Jamali: “I dunno about #3, he looks like a head teacher at a magic school.”
Noel: “it’s not #3, cause he’s…at hairdressing college.”
#3’s actually laughing at these. Like ‘fair play’.
Greg: “I THINK SOMEONE MIGHT HAVE STRUCK GOLD THERE.”

Greg mentions that Ray put his guitarist in a headlock at one point
Jamali: “That’s #5 back in the game..”

Jamali says that #4 looks like the guy at work you always avoid at the watercooler. “He’s always running a marathon but nobody sponsors him.”

Sure enough, they’re all convinced it’s 1, though Sam and Noel note that 1 and 2 are the same person, and #1 is in fact Ray. No mention of Genesis though, which is odd.

Daisy’s team has to pick out the lead from D-Ream, Al McKenzie. Al has been on before, as the one normally-dressed ID Parade guy on a lineup of Pirates. “GONNA BE A TOUGH ONE, THIS ONE.”

Also, it’s #4

Greg mentions that Things Can Only Get Better was the anthem of the 1997 Labour campaign, so he decides, as they did, to choose violence
“#1: Things can only get better
#2, we invaded Iraq.
#3, Hans Blix didn’t find the WMDs.
#4, the suspicious and convenient death of Dr. David Kelly.
and #5, Paddy Pantsdown”
WHAT DID LABOUR HAVE TO DO WITH HIM??
Also, I love all of this, just Greg shitting on the Blair regime.

Jamali: “#2 looks mad wholesome, like he does Tiktoks about non-alcoholic beer.”
Daisy: “#3 looks like a waiter who I gave a blowjob to after he gave me a free shot of limoncello.”
#3 goes down at that. And then gives a similar ‘figures’ look that the last #3 gave
Greg: “DEAR GOD.”

Noel: “What I’d like to think, Greg, is that you’re the only person in this room who can see #5.”
That is a Boosh-style gag if I’ve ever heard one

Daisy: “does 4 look like an old colonel who shot the last dodo?”

It is a shock to everyone that it ends up being #4, which proves my theory that nobody watching this show has seen any of the Mark Lamarr version

This is the kind of quick thinking I’ve waited for this version to get with. Earlier in the show, Sam says the only song he’s alright with is Away in a Manger. In Next Lines, Greg asks for the next lines from Away in a Manger.
I also like that, after Sam gets it right, Greg credits the song as ‘Away in a Manger, by Jesus.”

Greg: “Now I want to see y’all on your baddest behavior.”
Noel: “is THAT Jesus?”

Overall: Probably my favorite show of the series thus far, just on the strength of the dynamic. Daisy’s whole team was so much fun, and contrasting them with the trainwreck of Noel’s team was even better, especially in Intros. I really liked CMAT, and how much fun she was having; I also think Calum had a strong night, and has a nice sense of humor about himself. Sam I’m not a big fan of but he worked in some points. I think of all the episodes thus far, this episode respected gameplay and decisions regarding rounds, and made for really fun game rounds all night. It’s funny what happens when you actually focus a NMTB episode on playing NMTB, even if the first round could have been trimmed. No, I liked this one a lot, I hope this trend continues.

Best Regular: Greg had a really strong show tonight actually
Best Guest: CMAT seemed like a really fun presence and added a lot
Best Runner: barren livestock

Coming Up Next: Someone I’ve always thought would be a really cool panelist on NMTB comes aboard. I mean his bandmate’s been on and she’s been awesome every time, why not him?

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E02, or BRING IT TO US, GARIBALDI!

After a decent start to things last week, Buzzcocks returns with another installment. This one, amusingly considering this series’ upcoming conquests, has no returning players, yet it’s a very eclectic mix of gets here. Chesney Hawkes is the one I’m kind of surprised hasn’t been on before, his early 90s #1 “The One and Only” was a pretty big deal, and I think it had some semblance of crossover success over here. Speaking of crossover success, Gregory Porter’s an American jazz vocalist who’s become very successful in the UK despite winning Grammys back home. And then you have the requisite comedian pick in Amy Gledhill, who’s coming up the circuit recently.

Greg says, of Amy, “the biggest animal she thinks she could take in a fight is a whale. Cause she’d fist its blowhole.”
We’re just…going there tonight..

Chesney grins and bears it as Greg makes the obvious ‘if you wanted multiple hits you shouldn’t have called the song The One and Only’ joke. Wasn’t ‘I’m a Man, Not a Boy’ successful too?

Greg asks Gregory, who’s noticeably frightened by this show, what he’s doing here
Gregory: “I had 3 wonderful nights at the Royal Albert Hall”
Greg: “and you thought ‘I need bringing back down to earth’..”

Greg mentions that he and Gregory have met before, “what I didn’t realize was that you and I were hanging out with a Chechen warlord:”

well, I guess HE’s not coming back on again…
[unless Rag’n’Bone Man has gotten up to criminal activities since the second album came out]

Gregory talks about his worry at the prospect of going on UK television because of the different colloquialisms and sayings that will be completely lost on him. I second this, it’s taken 9 years of covering this show to get most of the regional references.

Greg points out that Gregory’s favorite regional phrase is “I’m gonna climb the pine stairways”, which tickles Greg, Amy and Daisy.
Greg: “…ANYONE?”
Gregory has fun with this, the phenomena of someone pulling out a phrase that confuses you, like “I’m gonna chew the fat of a chicken leg”, or “I’m gonna shine the silver NOW, hahaaa”
Jamali: “Every one of them sounds like a metaphor for wanking..”

I also like Amy’s anecdote of being allergic to onions but just thinking for 30-odd years that it’s normal to get a headache when eating them. “But I keep eating them, and you’ll never stop me.”
Greg: “And I’ll never try to.”

Chesney talks about the time he said the New Kids on the Block “weren’t his cup of tea” in an interview with Smash Hits, then ran into Danny Wood in Boston. “Very tasty fellow, real carpet-carrying, muscle-bound bloke-”
Jamali, not believing what he’s hearing: “…carpet carrying…”
Chesney: “that’s another english phrase, Gregory”
Gregory: “I’M THROWN, MAN!”
PFFF. Chesney is very loose and very candid. I like how he notes that Danny “must have been an avid reader of Smash Hits.”

Chesney even says Danny pinned him against the wall for this
Greg: “Because you said his band’s not your cup of tea?”
Noel: “‘Cup of tea’ means something very different in America..”

Chesney also talks about having a fan who broke into his house, took pictures while he wasn’t there, and asked him to sign him. “I go ‘is that my fucking bedroom?”
Jamali: “…did you sign them?”
Chesney: “…yeah.”
I think we’re gonna be alright

The whole panel likes the punchline of A, even though I’m pretty sure it came from a comedy writer. I think it’s C, though

I don’t like that instead of actually having the team deliberate, we focus instead on some mini-rounds about Fred Durst. Let the panel be funny, the game itself has enough opportunity for that

It also gets into the hair Van Halen had, and then Greg’s, which Chesney even says ‘looks like me in ’91..”

…no, not really, I’m still getting Rik Mayall…
Noel: “Greg, you look like you’re emerging from a FIRE..”

There is something so silly about, on Amy’s spiked hairdo
Greg: “how did that stand up? Gel?”
Amy, with her Northern accent: “Soap.”
Greg, trying: “Seeeuop?”
FLOAD!

And then after Amy explains it was just soap and a bit of hairspray
Greg: “Bob’s your uncle.”
Gregory, who has to be playing into it: “WHO’S BOB???”
I kinda love that Gregory is using the ‘confused foreigner’ trope purposely while also having a great time

The answer, and yes they do eventually get back to the round, ends up being B.

Again, B seems like it was cooked up by a comedy writer, but I think it’s C. Also funny that 2 of 3 of these guys have been on the show.

Chesney: “I’ve met a lot of Smash Hits journalists in the past, and I’d wanted to headbutt maybe five of them..”
so Jamali asks him what kind of biscuit he’d be, and Chesney goes ‘chocolate hobnob’
Noel: “you’re more of a sponge finger.”
Noel’s trying his best but is still a consistent background presence on this show

Noel: “what about Greg? GARIBALDI.”
PFFF

Noel even says that C was clearly written by Greg
Noel: “It’s playful and poetic, it’s PURE GARIBALDI.”
Oh, so this has stuck

I’m not usually keen on the ‘facts about the band’ bits, but Greg explaining the Stranglers’ heroin-induced concept album about alien visitations is the exact kind of stuff I’d talk about given the opportunity.

Chesney: “I did once do mushrooms with Eddie Vedder and Billy Idol in a hotel in New York.”
Greg, pressing a button: “I AAAAAAM THE ONE AND ONLY.”
Of course. Of course he’s installed a Chesney button. From the makers of the Human button, the David Byrne yipping button, and the Spandau button.

Then, after Amy tells a story about going to a Pizza Express on hallucinogenics, Gregory quips “they told me this show was like Songs of Praise!”
Is this like when Daniel Powter thought this show was like Top of the Pops?

Very funny seeing, after Jamali completely disproves the plausibility of A, that being the correct answer anyhow.

The first round took up half the show. This, let’s be clear, is an issue.

Jamali’s confused booping does prevent me from getting the first intro. I do like that even Jamali knows he didn’t help, and goes ‘nailed it, bruv’ to Chesney after they finish.
It turns out to be I’m Every Woman by Chaka Khan, which I think Daisy got within seconds

Greg: “In the video for I’m Every Woman, Chaka Khan wears five different outfits to represent every women in the world, if every women in the world looked like Chaka Khan in 5 different outfits..”
A simple joke, but he nails it.

Noel gets their second one, Heart of Glass by Blondie, easily because of how effortlessly Chesney recreates the guitar part.

Amy, standing up to do intros with Gregory: “this is an honor.”
Gregory: “the honor’s all mine.”
Amy: [freaks out]
Greg: “god, even I swooned..”

Y’see, when you get somebody like Gregory Porter, then I immediately know it’s Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles. Though I did hear Mark Lamarr in the back of my head trying to sing it over an intro that wasn’t Hit the Road Jack

Daisy, once the intro stops: “….fuck no, sorry.”
Amy, cutely: “it was good, though, wasn’t it?”
Greg: “do you want to stick with your original answer, ‘fuck no’?”
PFF

SOMEHOW NEITHER TEAM GOT THAT ONE. Jamali, perhaps jokingly, thinks it’s the Addams Family theme. It was the best intro of the bunch and you all draw blanks?
Though Daisy does admittedly yell out in anguish once she realizes what it was

The second one is Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, and if Daisy doesn’t get this one I’m gonna throw things. Also, nice that there’s a version of this intro on this show that doesn’t involve Jonathan Ross’s invisible trombone

Daisy, inevitably, doesn’t know it.
Noel, before I can get too mad: “BRRRRING IT TO US, GARIBALDI.”
How is THIS working??

So Greg throws it over
Jamali, before Noel, who knows it, can guess: “THEME FROM THE DATING SHOW? Theme from Blind Date?”
I kinda love this move
Greg: “I’m afraid I can take only your first answer.”
PFFFF
Greg, over the appalled audience: “What a shame, Garibaldi’s so strict with the rules..”

Thankfully, Greg does take Chesney with the correct answer, admitting “I’m not gonna take Jamali’s answer.”

Noel’s ID Parade, the lead singer of Salad:

I love the simplicity of Greg’s intros. “#1, Salad, #2, MEAT.”
And he gives the audience a moment.
Greg: “…is it #3, potato-”
Everyone loses it. Even #3

Jamali, verging on obscure: “#3 looks like that woman who put the cat in the bin.”
Greg, fighting composure: “SHE DOES N..OT…..I just called her a potato, I can’t…”

Jamali: “#3 looks really happy to be out of the house, isn’t it?”
#3 is trying so hard not to laugh. It is so difficult with this bunch.
Greg: “I think 3’s having the time of her life..”

Noel points out how shy #1 is
Jamali: “she’s got her arms really tight, like she’s got a ghost in a headlock..”

As it turns out, Mirene from Salad now works with autistic young adults, and I know she knows what she’s talking about because she doesn’t use ‘with autism’ or ‘on the spectrum’. Go Mirene!
Greg, to Noel’s team: “yeah, shame on you..”

Daisy’s team gets to pick out Cleopatra Higgins’ sister Yonah:

Greg dubs #3 “Thatcher Thatcher Male Snatcher”, and by the time they cut to #4 she’s already shaking her head in disbelief.

Jamali: “Cleopatra were like my first crushes, so I know who it is and I can’t, like, look at them..”
Greg: “what’ll happen when you look at them.”
Jamali: “…same thing that happened when you look at Gregory.”

Daisy asks what Gregory thinks, and Gregory thinks they all look like musicians.
Greg: [purses lips awkwardly]
Gregory, catching on: “…I shouldn’t give individual observations, should I?”
Look, I think it’s charming

Gregory has all these flowery things to say about these people, saying #2 has extraordinary strength
Jamali: “she looks like she could carry a carpet..”

Gregory: “#3 is thinking for me. She’s transferring her thoughts into my mind, SHE’S THAT STRONG.”
Jamali, the realist: “…#3 looks terrified.”

Gregory does nail it in saying it’s #4, which does explain why she went down at the ID Parade intros.

Greg: “…say hello to Yonah, Jamali.”
Jamali: [waves awkwardly then looks away again]

In Next Lines, when Greg gives Noel a line from Golden Brown, you can see Noel and Chesney do the phonetic version of the line without knowing the actual lyrics.

Greg: “move in, now move out; hands up, now hands down”
Noel: “I’m a big Garibaldi.”
I’m glad Noel was able to keep this much leverage over Greg
Greg has this annoyed hiss of a reaction which I also love

Greg, confirming what round was cut, gives a line from Holding Back the Years, adding “it’s that FRECKLY PERV.”
Noel: “I KEEEP…HOLDING…GARIBALDI…”
IT JUST WORKS

Overall: I wanted this one to be better than it was. There was a great panel, a fun runner, some great lines, a great atmosphere, and Daisy’s whole panel was in a really fun mood. Unfortunately the first round took way too long and focused so much time on time-wasting digressions Greg made rather than letting the performers make them. Also, it just pisses me off still that we don’t have competitive captains like we did back in the day, and that it comes down to “you have 2 points, you need 2 to win”. Like, it really feels like the ‘game’ of NMTB is an afterthought at this point, and it’s just a chat show with more steps. I will say, somebody like Chesney was into the ‘game bit’, and the ending run of Daisy’s team crushing Next Lines is what the show should always be. I just wish it was geared more towards that than just the incidentals.

Best Regular: Noel, again, had the leverage over Greg
Best Guest: Chesney was in a really fun mood and really got the game. Gregory almost went here but some of his, knowing, confusion held him back
Best Runner: garibaldis

Coming Up Next: Another show with three newcomers, and considering we’ve got three NMTB returnees down the pipe, possibly the most anonymous show we’re gonna have this year.

Never Mind the Watchdown: S31E01, or An Afternoon of Boating with a Big Man

On the heels of the second and far superior season of the NMTB reboot, Never Mind the Buzzcocks returns with its third Greg Davies series, and 31st overall. Tonight’s episode is technically the 300th of all time, and what better way to celebrate than with a…honestly really standard panel.

Daisy’s team gets the two returning guys, those being Danny Jones from McFly and The Last Leg’s Alex Brooker. Noel and Jamali get the newcomers, namely Amy and Georgia from Nova Twins, an alt-rock type guitar-and-crunch duo that feels like it’s aimed at people 10 years younger than me. Solid enough.

Greg says that Danny compared being in McFly to a sexless marriage, “which, I assume, means they only bang each other on birthdays and anniversaries.” Danny really likes this joke

Greg mentions Nova Twins’ album Who Are The Girls, “a question I stupidly asked J.K. Rowling recently”
PFFF. Hell yeah

I like Greg joking about how un-rockstar-like Nova Twins are, “and you praise your manager because you always stay in budget..”

Jamali doesn’t get this hot tub idea that Amy and Georgia talk up.
Georgia: “maybe have it in the winter outside..”
Jamali: “I’ve got a house, why the fuck am I bathing outside?”
I want to mention that Jamali pronounces it ‘Baath-ing.’

Greg, perfectly delivered: “Nova Twins, not rock’n’roll. MCFLY ON THE OTHER HAND. WOOOOO-EEE. The researcher was pissed just READING about you guys..”

Greg: ‘tell me about the two ladies that-”
Danny: “ohhh FUCK.”
HAAAAA.

So Danny talks about the band having a young model type outside waiting to talk to them, and the reveal is her mom’s also with her.
Greg: “I could have predicted this, the only person on this whole panel who goes YEEEAHHHH is Jamali.”
PFFFF

Greg asks what McFly did to this mother and daughter duo
Alex: “oh god, this isn’t how the song Five Colours in her Hair came about, is it?”
PFFFFF. DEAR GOD NO.

The pre-game bit Greg has involves testing the Nova Twins’ telepathic abilities, by showing Amy a photo and seeing if Georgia can guess anything on it. The photo in question gets a bashful reaction from Amy. Greg says if they do it he’ll give them 1000 pounds. “If they get this, I’m gonna kill myself on air.”
…well the listings say there’s a 31×02, so we know how this went..
Jamali, perfectly: “please get it right!”

Georgia: “is there an animal involved?”
Amy: “yes.”
Jamali: “WHAT THE FUCK?”
Greg: [horrified facepalm]

Jamali: “can I switch teams, bruv? They’re weird as hell!”

Turns out Georgia gets most of it [it’s the Elton John dolphin shot from last series]
Alex: “why don’t more telly shows open with telepathy?”
Greg: “I’ll tell you” [hand to temple]
The right amount of silly

On what Blue did that angered a politician:

I dig the updated graphic

Greg mentions Alex missing an opportunity to join Blue onstage once
Greg: “I didn’t expect this to be so tragic for you. I feel like I wanna hold you.”
Alex: “oh no it wasn’t like a Make-A-Wish thing or anything like that..”
PFFF. I do like Alex’s way at poking fun at the reputation of disabled people.

Noel mentions partying with Blue once at a BBC Party
Alex: “You and I ended up in a taxi with Lee Ryan. And you thought I knew him and I thought you knew him!”
Noel facepalms remembering this.
Alex also recalls the both of them trying to confer to figure out who knows him. “AND THEN HE GOES, LIKE, “I CAN HEAR YOU..”
I genuinely love this

It gets to the point where Greg asks them all about their chances in a fight with Blue. Jamali thinks that Lee would be a ‘scratcher’.
Greg: “Georgia, Amy, you think you two could handle yourself in a fight if it comes to it?”
Georgia and Amy, in unison: “with Blue? Yeah.”

Greg, as Alex closes in on B: “D’you think it’s in Blue’s nature to carry around trick chewing gum?”
Alex: “why not? It’s not the strangest thing I’ve heard tonight by a long distance.”
Alex is having a really strong show so far.

Daisy overrides Alex and says A, which…ends up backfiring tremendously as Alex was right with B.

Danny talks about getting back at an opening act that pranked his drummer by clingfilming their toilets and leaving a dump for them.
Greg: “Sorry, Danny, but I think that how that prank works is you put clingfilm on and you let THEM shit on it. I don’t think you have to add your own shit to that prank.”
Greg says this so perfectly.
Danny, playing along: “….OH YEAH. NOW I GET IT. SHIT!”
PFFF

Greg cracks up a bit at A, as he should

Noel talks about seeing Richard Branson roll by while he was in Jerusalem. He refers to him as “business Jesus”, which cracks up Greg.
Noel: “he’s got a massive head and a small body, he’s like a toffee apple.”

Greg mentions that both Tony Iommi and Ronnie James Dio lost their fingertips in accidents.
Alex, of course: “yeah, I’m struggling to have sympathy for any of them at this point.”

There’s a digression, after an anecdote about Greg’s mate storming into the head of the christian union’s house with devil horns glued to his head and no pants on, about what the devil’s dick looks like. This is the Buzzcocks I love.

Noel: “me and Jamali are telepathic, I’m gonna tell you what he’s thinking…he just said ‘I don’t give a fuck.”

I will say, very awesome seeing the show cut to break by having Nova Twins smash up a guitar.

Greg: “the only show on television brave enough to say ABBA…are…LAZY. Right.”
HE’S STILL BUTTHURT FROM LAST SERIES

Greg, also learning from last series, pre-Daisy’s intros: “the chicken queen ready, is she?”

I can’t tell what Daisy and Danny’s first intro is, but A.) it is performed relatively competently, and B.) those are more chicken noises
Greg: “I mean, not to take away from your 400th chicken impression of the show..”

Sure enough, Alex knows it’s Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake, which is something I thought it could be but wasn’t sure

So the second one, Danny is competently doing this one, but Daisy keeps doing this Ennio Morricone-by-way-of-the-Alfac-duck ‘WAAAH-WAAAAH’. It is…very amusing.
The longer it keeps going, the more it cracks up Alex, and even Danny a bit.
Greg: “It’s not for me to get involved, but, just an opinion, disregard Daisy.”

SOMEHOW ALEX GETS THAT IT’S A DRAKE SONG. And the exact one, even if I don’t recall this specific one being a hit at all. BONKERS. WOW.
And, ya know, hearing it played in…that was actually a pretty good intro. Daisy’s so bad at intros she whipped back around to being good at them.

Within 5 seconds of Amy, Georgia and Jamali’s first intro, I know it’s Sweet Child O’Mine. Noel probably will too.
…he does but it takes him 10 seconds to remember the title. SOMEHOW. All the drugs added lag time I guess.

Their second intro is a lot funnier, because the hook of it is a ‘bwaaaap’ noise Georgia keeps making that Greg ends up imitating. ‘That’s my favorite bit. BWWWWAAAHHHT.’

Like Noel, I was trying to find it but just couldn’t. Daisy accurately gets that it’s Just a Girl by No Doubt though.

Greg’s prompter joke about the rejected vaginal-themed names for Bush does crack up Alex, even if it’s an easy one.

Noel’s ID Parade:

Amy: “#2’s sitting there real humble, with the do-rag”
Jamali: “#2’s got a do-rag, but with no hair underneath.”
I missed this

Jamali, perfectly: “#1 works at Heathrow airport, like I’VE MET him.”
#1 does crack up at this

Daisy: “#5 is like a youth worker no one respects.”
Jamali: “He tries to sit on the chair backwards and go LISTEN KIDS..”
PFFFF

Noel: “#3’s arms look FALSE.”
This got me. Noel’s been having an under-the-radar show but that got me
Alex: “it’s very rare I look at someone else and think THEIR arms look weird.”
Meanwhile, #2 has been losing it at ALL of this

Jamali: “I think it’s 3 and 5…and 4 and 2, for an extra point, are father and son.”
He just doesn’t miss
Also, after this, another cut to #2 TRYING SO HARD to keep from laughing

It ends up being 3 and 4, who Greg was hoping it was because he’d slowly fallen in love with #4. When that’s revealed, Greg gives off an excited “YEEEEEESSSS!!!”

Greg, of course: “Noel, are you interesting in an afternoon of boating with a big man?”
#4: “ABSOLUTELY!”
AWWWW

Daisy’s team…has what must be the fiftieth time ‘Candy Pop’ by Bis has been played on this show, and maybe the fortieth time a member of this band has been on the ID Parade. If you’ll recall, Manda Rin from Bis was on the ID Parade for the Russell Brand show, which got pushed, so they filmed another one with her the following season. WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION, WAS MANDA RIN ALSO IN THE LADY LESHURR EPISODE THAT’S NEVER GONNA FUCKING AIR??

And yes, that’s Manda Rin in the #1 position. She’s gotta be tired of being in the ID Parade at this point.

Daisy: “#2 and 4 remind me of, you know in the Where’s Wally books, where you think you’ve found Wally but he’s slightly different?”
THAT is a great joke

Greg reveals that Bis did the closing credits theme for the Powerpuff Girls, which SHIT THEY’VE BEEN ON SEVERAL TIMES AND I DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW THAT. That show was my childhood, man. And it honestly tracks.
I also love that Jamali is completely won over by this. “Bro, I’m gonna be showing them some goddamned respect.”

Daisy somehow thinks it’s #3 even as Danny is fairly confident that it’s #1, which it so is. I…am trying to vouch for Daisy, but Phill would know this.
Sure enough, they get that one wrong. Like, you’d know that if you watched all the Never Mind the Buzzcocks episodes, but apparently that’s not a thing normal people do.

I will restate that the thing I loathe about this version is the really badly redubbed scores at the end of rounds that account for things we didn’t see that were cut. Just keep Greg after for pickups, agree on what stays in the show, do the math and make it look real. It’s not hard. Fucking SPACE CADETS did this.

On a sharper show, perhaps someone would call out Noel for mistaking Iron Man by Black Sabbath with Mr. Blobby.

Also, I love how proud Georgia is to nail the next line of Chaise Longue by Wet Leg. Of course she’s a zoomer alt-rock hero, she listens to Wet Leg
Though I did note they had trouble with the lyrics to Unholy, which they did a goddamned REMIX of.
Also, Greg pronounces Kim Petras’s name Kim P’Tras. Yeah, famed Klingon pop singer Kim P’Tras. Germans and Klingons are two different entities I think.

Then, as Daisy’s team goes, Danny correctly identifies Five Colours in Her Hair, but not that it’s Next Lines, so Alex has to swoop in and deliver the correct lyrics.

The ending. Oh boy, the ending. As the whole show has been building to it, Greg finally fulfills Alex’s dream by bringing out Simon Webbe, Duncan James and, yes, the eternally shat-upon Antony Costa, who must be relieved he’s not getting jokes flung at him this time around. And so Alex takes Lee’s place in the lineup and helps them perform All Rise. It’s a really fun moment.
The best part is Alex perfectly hitting the Lee part, knowing all the lyrics, and carrying it like a pro.

I do absolutely love how supportive Costa and Duncan are being, and Simon as well. This is Alex’s moment and they’re giving it to him. And it’s not a pity thing at all, they know Alex is a very successful comedian, they’re just fully in on the bit and want to make it work.

And that’s how this show ends. With Alex Brooker as a member of Blue, kicking ass, and jumping around and hugging Duncan the second the song finishes. What’s not to love about that?

Overall: I think that the Sky crew finally knows what works for this show. This wasn’t an overwhelming premiere episode but it had a lot of good things, like a very active panel where all the guests had something fun to do [Georgia and Amy’s telepathy, Danny’s zeal and Next Lines fumble, Alex…fulfilling a lifelong dream], while all the regulars got to shine as well. Even if Jamali had more moments, Noel did eventually have a nice show, he was just a lot quieter in the first half. Daisy I think knows when to lean into the funny, incompetent stuff but also when to be a backbone; I still think she’s the weakest fit of the four, but she isn’t without her moments. There were some weaker rounds in this episode, but the panel did allow for some fun moments, some great dynamics, and some excellent energy; having Alex Brooker as a supplanter does tend to do that. I think it’s not the highest standard for the first show of the series, but it’s a decent start that I hope we build on.

Best Regular: Jamali, but Noel did come close. Jamali’s just the best, man.
Best Guest: Alex Brooker, getting arguably a stronger edit than he did back in the Guest Host era.
Best Runner: Amy and Georgia’s telepathy.

Coming Up Next: An episode that’s very intriguingly booked, especially for a show of all newcomers. One of the intriguing guests was glimpsed in the season trailer that released recently; while he’s not one of the guests I’m most excited for this year [there’s three in particular that I’m excited to see return, and I think you can guess two of them], something about him thinks we could be in for something fun next week.