Alan Partridge comes to BBC America

yes but I loved that! it contextualises her staying with him for so long. a glimpse of tenacious competence when seen from outside Alan’s horrible treatment of her - a perspective we almost never see (eg him not even naming her in the books)

btw the hacktivist is the Pls Like guy

xp oh yeah I did enjoy it!

broadly enjoyed it although if the whole series is going to be entirely contained in the TV studio with that dense joke format it feels like it's going to run out of steam

things like Sue Barker references kind of betray an inherent cosiness but I'm not really fussed by that personally

it seems clear that this is all building to something, and that this episode is laying the foundation for some great story arcs, but… it was dry. i don’t think i laughed at all in the last 10 minutes, and moments which they clearly crafted to death (mainly the toilet mime) just felt forced.

i assume they’re playing up the precedent of people like madeley and piers morgan somehow continuing to be on the telly, making this conceit (just barely) believable.

yeah I had a constant running background thought of 'could I imagine watching a viral clip of Richard Madeley doing/saying this' which mostly produced affirmative answers

Very few highlights I thought - the Diana Dors joke, "Partridge, you wanker", Chinaman Square, another mispronunciation one I can't remember but will pick up on a rewatch, the co-host stealing his joke for the second time, Lolly Adefope disagreeing with everything he said while the co-host was always "exactly right".

Maybe it'll get there but the Sidekick Simon stuff fell horribly flat and the Emily Maitliss stuff felt like contractual obligation rather than scripted comedy.

oh wow i’ve only just worked out what chinaman square is

Actually that was a thing that annoyed me - Alan seemed to be deliberately adopting weird pronunciations of words (not including the two mispronunciation times) which I don't recall him doing before.

Presumably the leopard seal sounding like Gary Numan was supposed to be a callback to Music For Chameleons.

Actually that was a thing that annoyed me - Alan seemed to be deliberately adopting weird pronunciations of words (not including the two mispronunciation times) which I don't recall him doing before.

it’s all through his sky atlantic stuff. he thinks he elevates his class in a daily mail reader sort of way by saying ‘w---hhhat’ and ‘tellolist’.

Weird, I didn't pick it up there at all. Mea culpa.

There was a bit too much crammed in maybe - Knowing Me Knowing You works because there's only three guests per episode and everything gets time to breathe. As pure KMKW it might have worked better but they're trying to tell the backstory around the sides and that's the bit that isn't quite working.

As far as I know it's all going to be onset like that.

There's a sort of parallel but unintended irony at work in the fact the BBC are actually promoting this in HD as a flagship show, putting the likes of Maitlis in as a cameo etc. Even that email that went around to BBC staff yesterday. I think this is bad and gives it a glossy feeling that is very anti-Partridge. The sad thing is The Trip imo really suffered when it moved to Sky Atlantic as such a quintessentially BBC type of show, the Spanish series was really low budget compared to the first two, whereas Sky Atlantic actually gave Partridge a sort of retro British feeling in terms of how it looked and felt. They were channelling this for the handwashing report on last night's show but not sure there was enough of it.

Some of the all-time best Partridge moments are in Crooked Isle and the like.

agree with the general sense of disappointment

I think Mid-Morning Matters worked so well because it was Partridge completely in his element. Obviously, there's comedy to be had in him awkwardly trying to fit into a "proper" TV show but it's just not as funny as stupidly confident local radio Alan

Yeah agree - watching someone, who seems to just be "a normal BBC presenter" thinking he's a moron and vaguely negging him doesn't really yield much joy.

No other *colleague* in my decade at the BBC has taught me so how to go ‘hands-free’ in a train toilet.
Thanks, Alan.pic.twitter.com/IyTl1MAtgD

— Tim Johns (@timoncheese) February 25, 2019

i agree with pretty much everything itt but i'm staying focused on the fact that they're trying to do something completely different with alan, so i don't want to judge it too harshly on what we've seen so far. the series is a complete piece and we're still in act 1, so it's had to take its time to set up the characters, the format, etc. if it's going to go horribly off the rails (and it will, it's partridge), it needs to show us what the show looks like when it's on the rails.

definitely better second time round. susannah fielding does a fiercely good job in this, keeping up the gratingly authentic one show persona while fitting in subtle reactions to alan and being something else again during cutaways.

It already went off the rails - perhaps it would have been better if it didn't because then there'd be a credible reason for Partridge to come back. As it is, I don't think there would be bar a social media frenzy and ratings spike.

To be fair Alan's Knowing Me Knowing You talk show also went off the rails from episode one

I thought this was solid, I don't expect anything more than another round of solid AP

sure it’s technically off the rails already, but in the era of piers morgan continuing to get work it’s easy to justify the show returning in its current state.

btw by ‘off the rails’ i mean absolute calamity with injuries and resignations and possibly fire, rather than a bad interview and some tetchy hosting.

the Emily Maitliss stuff felt like contractual obligation rather than scripted comedy.

The BBC is so full of itself (sometimes?). That bit was horrible and the prog went off after it I thought. I fear there will be more of this too.

The programme literally went off after the Maitlis bit - it was the last 1-2 minutes of the show!

more content:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/alan-partridge-sandwich-review

(i always enjoy the written stuff!)

alexa is doing alan partridge quotes now. makes little sense since they’re completely out of context and in the wrong voice (e.g. it just gave me “why are you wearing that snazzy cardigan?” in humourless robot lady voice)

can’t get it to say “TEA OR COFFEE TEA OR COFFEE”

i’m all for alan everywhere but this is not even 7 on 10

wtf, that's brilliant. but so wrong

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-47369328

The comedy character's comeback was watched by 3.2 million viewers, according to overnight figures.

Back of the net

i've just watched it a third time because a) i'm insane b) there's so much fine detail that it easily bears rewatching. it really does get better (the hand hygiene package especially, since there's so bloody much peak partridge in there), but i maintain that everything after lolly adefope doesn't work.

This one was better, quite a few genuine laughs, the ending worked better though I found the animal voices bit unwatchable.

great episode and the ending was brilliant

Pivot to realising he had something on them and could exploit it was very well done.

Presumably this means the new show being talked about is War Machines.

It was infinitely better than the first episode. I thought the animal voices cringe-worthy done good, not bad. Really enjoyed this all the way through. "RIP you will be mist".

What still kind of bugs me is that Jennie - most of the time - doesn't bat an eyelash at AP's faux meanderings, and neither does the audience. Though the audience as gullible 'clap cattle' is probably close to the truth tbf.

*"he used to bring them off in the street"
*John's hand on Suzannah's knee in the clips
*The bit with the fan from Sunderland

Animal voices was maybe good but I just couldn't watch it

AP's eulogy literally drenched by whisky and Haskill's intake boosting Scotland's economy, that was sort of old school AP imo. I thought it was inspired.

Technically the meat-packing plant is in Willand

Oh one more - in the battle recreation "don't, I've got kids"

He had a v good quip about Adrian Chiles too, but I forget these jokes so quickly.

couldn't think what that "I've got kids" reminded me of but it was this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWpF4tBwhGQ

Anyone else follow the random Twitter debate about vegetarianism going on in the background?

Alan’s odd pronunciation of a couple of things in the first one reminded me a bit of Stephen toast, and now we have matey boy from horrible histories / the detectorists in the ray purchase role

do not disparage the co-writer of Paddington 2 in this manner

I thought Farnaby was perfect for the Partridge universe btw, like he could have been in four episodes of the TV version of Knowing Me as different characters.

yeah, i don't mind him tbh

What still kind of bugs me is that Jennie - most of the time - doesn't bat an eyelash at AP's faux meanderings, and neither does the audience.

this i don’t mind because real-life precedents make this at least partially believable, and jennie’s ultimately trusting that alan’s crapness won’t impact her career at all (at least until the last few minutes, when she’s basically staring showbiz death in the face).

also, now we know she had to deal with some horrifyingly sleazy shit from baskell, so there’s a good chance she’s relieved to be working with a dithering fool who isn’t a rapey bastard.

and on that: the writers have put jennie in the invidious position of being the subject of baskell’s revoltingness while also trying to step around what he was in order to keep her career intact. this has certainly happened right through tv history, and seems to be the first major theme of this series. has partridge been this dark before?

thought the second was unwatchable :/