Week two and I'm already struggling to find and watch bad television, it's not that there isn't enough to watch, because there is just loads out there. It's because I just instinctively blank out when the TV starts producing tripe and before you know it I've managed to zone out and clean the house instead of paying attention. Flip side of this is; my house has never been cleaner.

I did catch my first (and last) ever episode of Supernanny USA. I have no desire to repeat that viewing experience ever again. It's not that the show was bad; to be honest it wasn't, it was OK, but the show is just so shallow and meaningless. American family has problems with their kids because no-one in school teaches "Raising Children 101", Supernanny arrives and is very British as she observes them, then she dishes out some quick fix sugary solutions and in a short while the entire family is all smiles and functioning perfectly. I'm all for a show which teaches people how to raise their kids, goodness knows it's clear that the current generation of adults are completely unable to do it themselves (go go babysitting Telly Vision!) But Supernanny just kind of glosses all over it and leaves you pining for the good old days where the nanny flew with a magic umbrella, sang songs and had an affair with the chimney sweep.

At least it wasn't as bad as Animals Do The Funniest Things, which I caught while waiting for Robin Hood's last ever episode to air. By now you know the score, it's filled with animals acting up or out or just for the camera and it's played for the classic combination of "Awws", "Oooos" and "HAHAHAs" just like every other video clip show involving home cameras pretty much ever. Again like Supernanny it wasn't a bad show, but it was almost instantly forgettable. Just about all I can recall is a swan attacking a man who was swimming and an elephant stealing bananas. I'm not sure if those happened at the same time or not, perhaps it was a swan attacking an elephant stealing bananas from a man, I can't recall. I did catch myself smiling at the TV on occasion, and then immediately berating myself for being sucked in. But that's the thing, it is kind of funny and harmless.

Then there's Robin Hood, which pretty much ended it's run this evening. And honestly it didn't end it too badly, the front half of the episode was seriously cheesy and had more than it's fair share of lame duck moments. Skipping out on the various amusing oddities in the episode it's better to just concentrate on what worked and what didn't.

Poor Richard Armitage, he was pretty much thrown away in this episode. No real big moment for him, just a little banter, some running about, a brief sword fight with Vasey and then he gets double teamed in the following melee. Some hot sheriff/sheriff/Gisbourne stabbing there. But at least he got a dying speech in Robin's lap and it wasn't completely awful. Someone needs to now snap up Richard and put him into a show worthy of his talents. I've got a script for you Richard! Just give me a call, starring role and everything, right up your alley too. It'll be brilliant.

So Guy, Isabella, Vasey and Robin all pushed off and popped their clogs in this episode. That pretty much wraps up the entire show because all you're left with is "super cool" Archer and some not so merry men. They've vowed to carry on as they are "Robin Hood"; like some kind of co-op or passing of the torch. So no Robin sneaking off with his half brother Archer and telling him that there "must be a Robin Hood and now he's it". Which kind of leaves me thinking what was the point in Archer if he wasn't going to be the new torch bearer? Cue the fourth season where the merry men ride around with a stuffed version of Robin pretending he's still alive with clever rope tricks and ventriloquism.

That said Robin's passing was pretty well handled, sure it was a little trite and forced, but the emotional impact was pretty much spot on and bless him Jonas Armstrong didn't make me laugh. It was a good death, bravo.

I can't leave without mentioning Big Brother's latest eviction; I'm now convinced that the voting public don't quite "get" the point of this show after voting out the hilarious Cairon last week and the utterly barmy Angel this week. No British public, No! Bad public, don't make me use the newspaper on you.

The point is not to vote out the strange and weird people, it's to vote out the bland and boring ones so the house ends up an asylum filled with oddities and individuals driving each other nuts. Then we crown the biggest loony of them all the winner and ship them off to a nice padded cell. Crazy people make for good television! Granted Halfwit is pretty nuts in his own way (and must be feeling bullet proof by now to boot) but Angel was so barmy she should have been an automatic "keep in for as long as possible in case she starts eating someone".

Prediction for the winner is either Mr Generic (who's so bland I can't remember his name) or the blond who apparently has the big ha has. I can't tell if she does or doesn't because I'm still unable to distinguish between the two blonds, even when they're side by side. But I heard she's well liked by the housemates so I imagine it'll be a while before she gets voted and then the public will side with the largest cup size. Not that they're predictable or anything (watch me be wrong now).

And finally I'll close with an insight into the madness that is Twitter; after Rob (The Medium is Not Enough), Aaron (Snark and Fury) and myself speculate on the nature of the fouth season of Torchwood. Maybe I'm a little biased but some parts did make me laugh.
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At the tail end of this week I really got into watching shows I would normally avoid. I didn't really take notes while watching them, so it's mostly going to be vague impressions and I might even forget some of the shows I watched, but here we go.

First of all a thank you to Dan Owen over at Dan's Media Digest for pointing me in the direction of some trashy TV yesterday. I didn't watch all of your suggestions because other things interrupted (e.g. Have I Got News For You). But I did indeed watch Total Wipeout, which I must admit I didn't hate. In fact I had a bit of a grudging admiration for the contestants and a bit of a dislike for the editors who felt some need to make people having to perform difficult and humiliating tasks look even more foolish with replays. Mostly I was impressed with the sheer nuttiness and grit shown by the contestants and I enjoyed rooting for whomever looked least likely to win.

Of course I was drawn back to watching Robin Hood again, mostly because I wanted to see if the quality shown in the previous episode would continue. Sadly I don't feel it did, the show was back to it's usual nonsense and I think my main assessment is this. Robin Hood is bad, Jonas Armstrong is a complete fish out of water (and bad) and Richard Armitage is just brilliant. Seriously he needs his own starring role in a fantasy/medieval series where he can play a character with dubious morals, maybe a British Firefly type show with a band of rogues chugging about the universe. I could see him as a Captain Malcolm Reynolds sort easily. Anyway, I shall probably watch until the end of the series, at least then I'll have some context for Dan (DMD) and Aaron's (Snark and Fury) reviews of the show (which is how I've been following it without watching up until now). Apparently there are some deaths promised in the series finale, I'm holding out for Robin Hood popping his clogs.

I also attempted to watch some Big Brother 10, but I did find it exceptionally difficult to follow anything which is going on. When there's fifteen (I think) people around it's rather hard to follow anything, especially when quite a few of them look and sound similar. I can barely tell the difference between the two blondes at all, apparently one of them is now called Dogface after changing her name on the show (I can only assume it was for a task). That's pretty amusing, especially whenever Marcus Bentley narrates about her in his always amusing accent.

It was really difficult going watching any of the "highlights of the past 24 hours" and I could barely keep my attention for more than five minutes before wandering off to sandpaper my face away in an attempt to clean off the stain caused by watching. But the absolute worst moment occurred during the live eviction show on Friday, which I was watching while waiting for 8 out of 10 Cats to start. Housemate Cairon, who's London born but raised mostly in America had some major problems with Sree, a sweet overly sensitive soul who'd asked him to treat women with respect. How dare he suggest such a thing, as the age of the gentleman is dead and gone, dem is all bee-hatches and garden ho's now innit?

As such the scene unfolded with this bizarre hat wearing pseudo-wannabe gangster/rapper type just rapid fire attacking poor Sree. It was an exceptionally vile and horrible moment of bullying, made all the worse by the total apathy from many of the other housemates around. It was like watching one of the less intelligent street lads from The Wire verbally abusing a Disney character in the Playboy mansion - it was almost funny just how one sided and unpleasant the whole thing is, thankfully Big Brother stepped in where everyone else failed. All I can hope is the very moment Cairon is up for eviction he's turfed out of the house faster than you can say "gimp".

The highlight of the awfulness for me though was Embarrassing Illnesses, a show which takes members of the public with... well... embarrassing illnesses and brings them on the show to try and see if the medical profession can help out. Sort of like a TV GP. This in itself is quite an altruistic idea, it's a reality TV show which is genuinely looking out to help people and I initially found myself nodding in approval.

But gradually I began to notice the insidious and disturbing undertone to the show. These poor members of the public are paraded out and put on display for the public to ogle at like the old freak shows of yesteryear. One poor chap had his infected (and obviously very painful) scalp infection described as "manky" by the technician examining his skin cells and just about every single moment is punctuated by terrible puns and one liners just highlighting the humiliation these people are going through. All that was missing is a few amusing "You've Been Framed" style sound effects, canned laughter (and other such audience noises), a little "WAA, Waa, waaa, waaaaaaaaa" music and you'd realise just how perverse this show actually is.

I'm pretty used to human suffering being exploited in the name of "reality television" by now, but I think Embarrassing Illnesses managed to push the envelope all the way out with it's underhanded and sneaky handling of the whole thing. I wasn't exactly offended, I think it's impossible for TV to offend me short of showing something absolutely illegal or so debasing I can't even bring myself to suggest the acts here (I guess I'm just too desensitised by all the violence on the telly vision these days), but Embarrassing Illnesses did manage to make me feel dirtier than Big Brother did. And that's an achievement to be proud of.
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A rather peculiar thing happened last Saturday. I got home from a long day of work, spent dealing with a rash of genuine POS members of the public, RSI in my wrists and a blinding headache caused by a lack of sleep. Additionally due to flooding on the train lines I'd been delayed a further half an hour longer than usual in getting home.

I arrive back, put everything away and turn on the telly box, looking forward to watching some episode of Top Gear I've already seen five or more times before over on Dave. Pretty much the perfect television for winding down in front of, which is what Dave is all about for me and that's why it's my favourite British terrestrial television station - even if they do keep showing the same episodes of QI over and over (enough with the A series please Dave, I want something a smidgen more recent!)

But after turning on my box and TV I have a sudden and terrible realisation. For the first time in pretty much my life the channel remote has gone missing. For some of you this might be a pretty common occurrence, but for me it's a rare thing indeed, I keep all five of my remotes together, in order of height and colour. Yeah, a little OCD, I know. But the unthinkable happened and I was stuck with the TV on BBC 1 - left there from the previous night where I decided to watch The One Show because Adrian Chiles is quite likable and Christine Bleakley is a strange collection of physical and personality traits - which when taken separately are quite annoying, but when put together become simultaneously lovely and attractive.

This time though The One Show was not on, no - it was seven o'clock on a Saturday and this meant one thing. Robin Hood was on. As soon as I realised this I pretty much let out a cry of despair at the ceiling and began frantically hunting for my remote, pleading with anything which might be willing to me help out - my previous experiences with Robin Hood have always resulted in my switching the TV off.

After searching for five minutes unsuccessfully I sat down in my chair and considered my options. I could either switch the TV off and read a book - but I really wasn't in the mood to read, change the TV channel to the DVD setting and watch something from my collection, but glancing at it didn't reveal anything which grabbed me at the moment. I could turn on the 360 and either play Left 4 Dead or Castle Crashers, but I wanted an activity which would allow me to nurse my headache without forcing too much activity. So no luck there.

But, while sitting there I began to realise I was there was another option, so surrendered to the fates which caused my remote to be mislaid and actually watch an episode of Robin Hood again. So I began to pay attention - it seemed that the trendy, escaped from our time Robin Hood (Jonas Armstrong ) was sat by a fire with the more realistic (and frankly better) Guy of Gisborne (Richard Armitage) and they were being talked at by some mysterious hooded figure with a wheezy voice. He told them a story and I got to watch an episode with virtually none of the characters from the show in it. This turned out to be a genius move as the actors they had in for this 'one off' were much, much better than 90% of the current cast.

Now this story was rather predictable and pedestrian, and included more than it's fair share of retch inducing moments - combined with a pretty cruddy performance from the boy playing 'Young Robin'; but on the whole it was quite watchable. I found myself paying attention and understanding why there are people who watch and enjoy this mind-numbing tripe - it just doesn't try and offend in any way what so ever. No surprises, no need to philosophise or understand character motives, just sit back forget about any sort of realism or a remote jot of period accuracy (I can't call it historical accuracy because it's hardly history) and enjoy!

I also found myself thinking how much better this was without the normal cast doing the acting and wistfully remembering Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and the Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood with a forlorn remembrance of how much better each of those was than this (aye, even Costner's Robin is better than this one.) But I did continue to watch even though I had the option to switch off the TV and go paint a wall. I stuck with it until the episode finished and at times enjoyed the events.

And even though my only gains from the experience were the following...

a) If your cast is as rubbish as a lot of the Robin Hood one is (from previous viewing experiences), don't highlight it by giving the viewer a great episode episode which is well written and acted - without including your main cast for most of it. Then again, if this is some plan to boil Robin Hood down to Guy & Robin then I'm all for it.

b) Richard Armitage as Guy is just about the best thing in the show and as such I'd be very happy and content if he killed Robin and everyone who knows what he looks like then take over the job. I'd watch the "Guy of Gisborne" show on a weekly basis.

c) A Knight's Tale is more realistic and historically accurate.

d) I absolutely hate, HATE that CGI archery target board transition with a passion.

e) I forgot just how much I enjoyed the scene where Guy slew Marian at the end of the last season. That was a well written moment, even if it was a tad misogynistic... Then again, what do you expect to happen if you taunt a heartbroken and violent man carrying a sword? Bravo Guy and bravo the writers for that one.

...the experience was a lot less painful than I expected it to be. At times it was actually fun.

Frankly I wouldn't go out of my way to watch Robin Hood again any time soon, but as the experience was not as awful as I remembered earlier episodes being it did give me with an idea. So each week I'm going to find a show I normally wouldn't watch and give it a go, then I'll write about the experience here on either a Friday or a Saturday. Maybe I'll find some new gems, get a new perspective on something old or just revise my opinions (which believe it or not I have actually done where RH is concerned, as I now class it as light entertainment instead of "must avoid").

As for the remote? It turned out to be hiding behind my Rock Band guitar.
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