Nathan Barley comes to TV

Dan's position, stuck in a world he hates, has been untenable from the start. But we have no clue how low he'll go. In the first episode we see him torn between scorn and collusion with "the idiots". He seems like he's going to be the John Wayne character. But soon we see he's no John Wayne. He's not even the Preacherman the idiots take him for. He's weak, fatally flawed by lack of money, lack of knowledge, lack of pride.

Dan's face has been the barometer of his conflicted emotions, and has twitched and sneered and cringed and looked baleful (the most brilliant acting of the series has been the gamut of negative feelings expressed by that face). But as he's jerking off the builder everything is running across that face at double speed and double strength: Dan is pained, embarrassed, humiliated, bewildered. HE IS JERKING OFF A BUILDER FOR MONEY.

The series could be called "Six Episodes In Search of Character". By the look of the trailer for Episode 6, though, it's more of a moral "Battle Royale", an elimination game with Dan and Nathan battling it out to be the "winner" in a world where only the pathetic survive.

Did anyone else like that song of Mandy's? "Bad... to have a bad uncle..." Delivered rather like Sarah Nixey on top of a particularly shivery Soft Cell chord sequence.

Morris can always generally be relied upon to use diegetic (and indeed non, c.f. "Blue Jam"/"Jam") music well; just the background songs seem chosen to jarring perfection - "Harvest for the World" and "Alright" in that family pub; "Stool Pigeon" IIRC earlier in the unspecified cafe.

I was actually glad when Claire's cracks showed, because it made her more an actual whole, rounded character, rather than just an empty shell for expressing disgust at Nathan and Dan.

Any idea what they are?

the resolution was all wrong - 6 characters at 6 pixels a piece > 32 columns the spectrum had.

And Dan Ashcroft - when will he get hold of a gun? I liked how he used his initiative and wore TWO gloves (and was still somewhat foiled even in that). He's like the further demoralised incarnation of Julian Barratt's char on The Mighty Boosh.

i think ashcroft WILL get a gun next episode... and possibly shoot nathan?

Down to 700,000 for the third episode, the second worst Friday night viewing figures Channel 4 has had in a decade. It's not even making the top 30 most viewed on C4.

someone on tv listing / review pages was also postulating about a second series and what it would contain - librarian chic was the only thing i remember.

target audience all out djing?

Still, they're down the pub before that, they're hardly hanging around watching TV.

ahhhhh, you may be right!

Nathan Barley's not really Friday night telly, is it?

What's the worst? I actually feel a bit guilty about this, since I suspect a pretty large proportion of us are going out on fridays then downloading NBs on saturday mornings...

I *was* wondering how Nick was going to react to this episode.

I think it captures the rivalries and one-ups that you get in the creative side of the media pretty well perfectly. There is a Barley in every office and he's always busking others' ideas, he KNOWS he's a wanker and his method of ascendancy is to play off everyone who finds him repellent against each other because that will leave him enough leeway to get the ear of the big boss, who the Ashcrofts in any given situation also have identified as a wanker in extremis.

haha, i did this for the first time last Saturday only to find that my housemate had taped it anyway, so we watched the VCR....then danced to '99 Luftballoons', wore shoulder pads, drank Tab Clear etc.

Sending up an alleged global fashion icon/"all-round cool person", with a recently discovered model stepdaughter to boot (as well as someone who mildly irritates me - see also Andre, who I hate more), in a show about the idiocy of posers and trendies makes sense to me. Like, they could replace her "Harajookoo Gurls" fixation with Sugar Ape staff. Or have Momus walk in(I kid, I kid).

Dan reminds me the most of Clerks' Dante Hicks, only even more wet. And instead of Randal Graves, he's got Nathan. And a builder instead of an ex who fucks a dead guy. And no one screaming "Snootchie nootchie bootchies!" in his general area.

Charlie Brooker interviewed Nick once for some BBC internet/computers thing that used to be on Radio 1 around the time of Stars Forever (I was told this when I interviewed CB for TvGoHome book and had moved from 'interview' to 'drink') and pronounced him both nice and interesting. I think Nathan Barley's twattishness comes from a combination of illiteracy, opportunism and Englishness.

BTW there is a 'thinkpiece' about Peter Doherty in the latest issue of Edgy Style Mag which is waaaaay too referential/reverential (did everyone catch the documentary last week?)

::rolls around on the floor in a delight of outrage::

Ste, doesn't the Hoxditch mentality still make room for countrywide/global 'icons'? I think 15Peter20 would agree.

In 1999? The same year he invented Nathan Barley, yeah?