# Need help from UK dopers re: bad TV show **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027 "2011-12-13T12:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/41 "2011-12-14T11:34:24Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > I always remember Sandy was supposed to be pulling a pint to serve up to a customer, but the camera shot was wrong, so that you could see the already full pint under the bar while he went through the motions. > > I loved that show, it was so dreadful. Awesome pseudo-Shadows theme tune though. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M2zSWQfEsjY/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AG-AoAC8AGKAgwIABABGGUgVChDMA8=&rs=AOn4CLACEMR-Z0Lu8BNkuh00kc8IBgFSzw "Tv Theme Crossroads Tony Hatch") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2zSWQfEsjY) ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/42 "2011-12-14T11:45:14Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Yeah, okay, this is it. Although you have to admit it was redeemed somewhat by the Bobby-Ewing ending (of the resurrected version). What happened in the finale? I can’t seem to find info anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![drbhoneydew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d78d45/32.png) [@drbhoneydew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drbhoneydew)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/43 "2011-12-14T15:18:39Z")
Pretty much anything featuring Messrs Ant & Dec (who were apparently superglued together in Byker Grove and no one bothered to untear them), Dale Winton or Vernon Kaye is guaranteed to be bad. Much of their output is unoriginal repackaged gameshow material or reality/talent, so a touch out of what you’re after. I still shudder at a mid 80s adaptation of Brat Farrar which pretty much no-one remembers now as it was so bad. It did however have a theme tune that both me and my brother occasionally get as an earworm. Craig Charles of Red Dwarf fame featured in an early 90s virtual reality gameshow called Cyberzone which was pretty bad, cobbled together with ideas out of the Krypton Factor and Knightmare but with graphics straight out of the Money for Nothing video and a desperate hope that the so-called coolness of virtual reality would see it through. It didn’t. I’ll put in a feeble defence of El Dorado with a comment that once they realised it was getting cut, the writing and acting vastly improved. I can’t remember its name, but there was a Saturday evening series on the BBC about 10 years ago that was almost unspeakably awful. It was about a detective and a lady scientist who’d invented a time machine which they then used to solve crimes. Which would have been OK, but for the fact that the crimes were hardly-changed-at-all-but-always-simplified versions of Sherlock Holmes cases and as such could have easily been solved without the use of the time machine. Throw in some desperately hammy false sense of urgency because you’ve got a time machine acting and you’ve got yourself something that isn’t getting recommissioned. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/44 "2011-12-14T15:38:25Z")
I think the winners have been identified here: _Triangle, Crossroads_ are definitely at the top of the list. _Crossroads_ had a cracking theme tune though. From the game show genre, how about _3-2-1_? Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin… a great way to know that you are wasting your life in front of the telly on a weekend. There’s also _Bullseye_, a dart game show that is as dreadful as it sounds. How about _The Sweeney_? Hated this as a kid, though it might have been more of the grittiness of the show than the actual content. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/45 "2011-12-14T15:50:24Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > What happened in the finale? I can’t seem to find info anywhere. I’m not spoilering this but [here you go](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/may/28/broadcasting): > [@](#): > > Unfortunately the ill-starred project was all too real and now the plug is being pulled in a bizarre fashion, with the whole series being written off as a dream in the mind of Jane Asher’s character. > > In the final episode, to be screened on Friday, Angel Sampson wakes up to discover she is an overall-clad checkout girl called Angela and not the hotel boss Crossroads viewers thought she was. > > Her husband, Max, turns out to be a beer-guzzling supermarket customer, while other characters are similarly reinvented in the eight-minute back-to-reality sequence, according to a report in today’s Daily Mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/46 "2011-12-14T16:37:51Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > From the game show genre, how about _3-2-1_? Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin… a great way to know that you are wasting your life in front of the telly on a weekend. 3-2-1 is a good one. Unlikeable host, cheesy Z-list entertainment acts that you’d never heard of, and the clues… I used to think when I watched it originally that one day, when I was older and wiser, I would be able to grasp the logic of the clues. But now that they repeat 3-2-1 on digital channels, I have watched a couple of episodes anew and it confirms what I probably suspected all along - the clues make almost no sense, and were quite possibly so deliberately vague that the producers could decide on the fly who got which prize. Celebrity’s clue\*: “Bin’s the name, and with this prize you’ll be in the game”\* Ted Rogers: _Could “bin” mean that this is Dusty Bin [the show’s booby prize]? Perhaps. But it could also mean “binary”. “You’ll be in the game…” - a computer vidoe game, maybe? Or could it mean a game reserve? And a pair of BINoculars!? [drum roll] Yes, that’s right, you’ve won a set of golf clubs!_ ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/47 "2011-12-14T16:43:55Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > 3-2-1 is a good one. Unlikeable host, cheesy Z-list entertainment acts that you’d never heard of, and the clues… I used to think when I watched it originally that one day, when I was older and wiser, I would be able to grasp the logic of the clues. But now that they repeat 3-2-1 on digital channels, I have watched a couple of episodes anew and it confirms what I probably suspected all along - the clues make almost no sense, and were quite possibly so deliberately vague that the producers could decide on the fly who got which prize. > > Celebrity’s clue\*: “Bin’s the name, and with this prize you’ll be in the game”\* > Ted Rogers: _Could “bin” mean that this is Dusty Bin [the show’s booby prize]? Perhaps. But it could also mean “binary”. “You’ll be in the game…” - a computer vidoe game, maybe? Or could it mean a game reserve? And a pair of BINoculars!? [drum roll] Yes, that’s right, you’ve won a set of golf clubs!_ I remember Saturday evening programming and wishing I was old enough to go to the pub. It was bad. _Blankety Blank, It’s a Knockout, Surprise Surprise…_ Of course American kids were probably stuck watching _Lawrence Welk_ and _Hee Haw_ so I suppose we all suffered. 🙂 But I recall we also got Clive James and Paul Hogan, so the Aussies saved us from complete dreck in the early 80s. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/48 "2011-12-14T21:01:12Z")
I loved 3-2-1 as a kid - it had Dusty Bin as a ‘prize.’ 😃 El Dorado and Crossroads are the only ones that make sense for a comedian to joke about. All the others are a matter of opinion (or, like Triangle, really obscure), but those two were the butt of loads of jokes for how bad they were. I actually kinda liked both of them, esp. El Dorado, which was never as bad as its reputation and improved a lot over its short broadcast time. But still, a line like ‘such a bad actor that the El Dorado cast were laughing at him’ would work. ---
**Author:** ![scruffycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scruffycat/32/200_2.png) [@scruffycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scruffycat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/49 "2011-12-14T21:26:55Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > At first I read “Clatterford” as [Catterick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catterick_(TV_series)), which was pretty awful in its own right. Vic and Bob are funny in the right format. This wasn’t it. Though I have to admit I have a real fondness for this comedy, I’m not really suprised it’s not as well received as some. It was a bit out there. > [@drbhoneydew](#): > > I can’t remember its name, but there was a Saturday evening series on the BBC about 10 years ago that was almost unspeakably awful. It was about a detective and a lady scientist who’d invented a time machine which they then used to solve crimes. Which would have been OK, but for the fact that the crimes were hardly-changed-at-all-but-always-simplified versions of Sherlock Holmes cases and as such could have easily been solved without the use of the time machine. Throw in some desperately hammy false sense of urgency because you’ve got a time machine acting and you’ve got yourself something that isn’t getting recommissioned. Crime Traveller? Starring the bloke out of Eastenders? That was rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/50 "2011-12-14T22:29:26Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I am white and it totally made me cringe! > > Of course, it was clearly _meant_ to be an anti-racist show, with (IIRC: it is possible that memory has censored itself) the prejudiced white guy as a buffoon and the black guy as sort of two-dimensional paragon, but it was so badly done it came out as embarrassing and deeply racially insensitive There was also ‘mind your language’ that was set in a night school class teaching English to foreign students. Every race and nationality was ridiculed. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/51 "2011-12-15T03:25:06Z")
On August 31, 1992, BBC2 showed a program called _TV Hell_. Actually, it was an evening-long program. It was about the worse British TV shows and British TV moments up to that point, with short segments of the programs and comments about how the shows happened to end up so bad. I happened to be visiting the U.K. then, so I watched much of it. Unfortunately, I can’t find a list of all the programs that this program considered to be the worse British TV shows. It appears that you can watch all of _TV Hell_ on YouTube, but it’s cut up into ten-minute pieces. Here’s somebody’s list of bad British TV: > **[爱游戏体育官方](http://www.sotcaa.net/comment/hell01.html)** > > 爱游戏体育官方，市国资委为出资人。经营范围包括城市基础设施建设、投资、公房租赁和管理、棚户区改造及安置房建设、房地产开发、物业管理和施工总承包等。爱游戏体育官方集团注册资本金为25亿元，下含三个子公司，分别是宣爱游戏体育官方、宣城市爱游戏体育官方置业有限公司、爱游戏体育官方 ---
**Author:** ![JessMagic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/52 "2011-12-15T05:15:16Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > “Little Britain” is one of the least funny things I have seen on British TV. I rank it lower than “Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps”, which is really fucking saying something. Woah! Settle down! _Little Britain_ wasn’t great, but it had some redeeming moments. Like when that selfish woman tells her hospitalised elderly mother that she’s putting her into a home: Mother: “But what about my flat?” Selfish woman: [offhand] “Oh, I rented it to some gays.” Anyway, I’ll throw _2.4 Children_ in there. Terrible, canned laughter, BBC1 garbage. ---
**Author:** ![coffinjumper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8baadc/32.png) [@coffinjumper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffinjumper)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/53 "2011-12-15T05:36:28Z")
I’m not from the UK, but if I may offers one based on hearsay, I have never heard one positive word said about Bonekickers. A lot of horrible ones though… ---
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/54 "2011-12-15T11:40:23Z")
Triangle is famous on “worst of” clip shows for the beginning of the first episode featuring a [topless Kate O’Mara.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex9M76bMe8M) ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/55 "2011-12-15T19:35:45Z")
Nobody has mentioned ‘Bo Selecta’ yet? Appalling ‘comedy’ based around the idea that a bloke puts on a fat suit, says, ‘I’m Michael Jackson’ in a yorkshire accent and then, well, thats it isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/56 "2011-12-15T20:03:03Z")
> [@coffinjumper](#): > > I’m not from the UK, but if I may offers one based on hearsay, I have never heard one positive word said about Bonekickers. A lot of horrible ones though… I am from the UK and I have never heard _any_ word said about Bonekickers. What on earth is it? ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/57 "2011-12-15T21:21:47Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > Nobody has mentioned ‘Bo Selecta’ yet? > > Appalling ‘comedy’ based around the idea that a bloke puts on a fat suit, says, ‘I’m Michael Jackson’ in a yorkshire accent and then, well, thats it isn’t it? Oh God yes. I had a friend who swore to me as someone who loved _Brass Eye_ and _The Ali G Show_ (original) that I would love Bo Selecta. What a load of shit. I still haven’t forgiven him. No, putting on a rubber mask and pretending to be Craig David is not even remotely funny. Damn. Now I want to kick a puppy. ---
**Author:** ![coffinjumper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8baadc/32.png) [@coffinjumper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffinjumper)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/58 "2011-12-15T21:53:36Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > I am from the UK and I have never heard _any_ word said about Bonekickers. What on earth is it? This actually makes me happy, I’ve heard a lot of shit about it online and the curiosity view made me understand why. 2008 BBC show involving shitty archeologists doing fake science destroying artifacts and being horrible people. With weird connections and magic religious crap. It has elements of Indiana Jones and CSI only, you know… crap. It is apparently bad enough that BBC let ITV release the dvd, and I’m led to believe those networks are in direct competition with each other. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027/59 "2011-12-16T00:25:30Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m not spoilering this but [here you go](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/may/28/broadcasting): Cheers (sorry for the delay in thanking you). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-from-uk-dopers-re-bad-tv-show/606027.md?page=2)