I’d never heard of this television series before it was mentioned in an interview. After taking a look at the website, I’m convinced I have to see it now.
The imdb entry says that the first series was in 2002; was it ever released on DVD?
It looks like series 2 was last year and a DVD release is planned; any word if it’s going to make it to BBC America?
The first series was released on DVD in October 2003 (I’ve seen it, very entertaining). The second series will be released in the UK on DVD later this month. You can order/pre-order both from Amazon UK if you have a multi-region player.
They changed the format significantly for the second series though, it being a spoof of Tomorrow’s World (old BBC science magazine show) and IMO nowhere near as good as the first series, which was a spot-on piss take of those old educational programmes like Stop, Look and Listen.
…just finished playing Diarrhea Dan, boy thats a game straight out of the eighties!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/programmes/computers/dd.shtml
I agree with Usram: the second series, while still amusing, wasn’t quite so amazingly precise as the first in the way it resurrected as spoof a genre you had otherwise not realised you had very nearly completely forgotten.
All together now: Little Mouse …
I’ve printed out a version of their periodic table and hung it on my wall. Quality stuff.
I have the DVD of the first series which (IMO) is vastly superior to the second; as Usram says, the first series was a spoof science programme for schools; the second series was a mock science magazine programme and while it had its moments (the one about food, documenting the huge number of fast-food casserole outlets was rather good), it tried too hard and some of the jokes just fell flat because they were too silly.
If you get the DVD of the first series, I’d recommend watching Iron, Sulphur or Water first.
“Water, chemical symbol H twenty [rostrum camera pans to H20 in the periodic table], is all around us, but what exactly is water? That’s a difficult question, because water is impossible to describe; we might very well ask the same question about birds. What are birds? Nobody knows.”
I don’t know about the second season, but the first has already played on BBC America. That network has the most random and unpredictable schedule I’ve ever seen, so who knows if it will ever run again, but before I seem to remember it coming on at an unusual time (I think it came on after one of those 40-minute block shows) rather late at night. It apparently isn’t playing now, as the website makes no mention of it.
Der, it never occurred to me to check Amazon UK. It appears that the programme is usually dispatched within 24 hours, and it costs just under 10 quid. Hee hee, you people talk so funny.
Since it looks like the series 2 release is imminent, and I don’t have a region-free DVD player anyway, I might as well just see if BBC America runs the show as a promotion for the second series DVD release.
I still wish the BBC website used a different video format – I refuse to download RealPlayer again, so I can’t watch any of the clips.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it; I wonder whether it will work without the context. What you have to realise is that with the sole exception of the veracity of the script, there really were educational programmes exactly like these; they’ve got the look and feel, the pace, the voices, the props absolutely spot on.