BRITISH television drama departments are institutionally incapable of having fun.
You doubt me?
Imagine what BBC1 would’ve done if it had gotten its hands on Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty
Winning Time is set in an unapologetically brash and much happier decade when The Lakers won the 1980s NBA title
Imagine for a second what BBC1 would’ve done if it had gotten its miserable, guilt-ridden hands on Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty.
They wouldn’t have been the LA Lakers, for a start.
They’d have been a netball team, and instead of the booming 1980s, viewers would have been teleported back to Windrush generation London in the 1950s, where every other scene would’ve been a gear-crunching metaphor for slavery, the evils of the British empire and blah blah blah.
Be forever thankful then that the best drama of the year is in the safe hands of Sky Atlantic and arrived back for its second series this week with a sly nod to the nudity that followed but none of those pant-wetting warnings about “attitudes of the time” or words that some people might pretend to find offensive.
And why would they, frankly?
Winning Time is set in an unapologetically brash and much happier decade when The Lakers, guided by the genius of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who’s played with abundant charm by Quincy Isaiah, have just won the 1980 NBA title.
I’d hope though that the subject matter puts off no one, because you don’t need to know anything about basketball to fall in love with Winning Time.
Like all the greatest sports dramas, its themes are universal — love, betrayal, ambition, loyalty, revenge, lust and the infidelities of Johnson, whose serial philandering eventually led to his HIV diagnosis and the collapse of the Lakers dynasty.
The striking thing though that immediately sets Winning Time aside from almost every British drama since the days of Auf Wiedersehen Pet is its sense of humour.
It’s really funny and tackles all the big issues with a laugh.
So you don’t just see the nearly all black Lakers fleeing the Boston Garden after drubbing the Celtics in a hail of missiles on a “White Bus”, a little arrow graphic pings to life with the caption: “Actual name of the company”.
It’s full of these production tricks as well, and the first episode’s credits even contain a name check for Magic Johnson’s talking knee injury, which was theatrically voiced by Rodney Saulsberry, apparently.
For this reason, you can tell the show’s made with love and a lot of hard work, but there’s no real secret to Winning Time’s ultimate success.
It all comes down to the script, characters and cast list, which isn’t burdened with a single bad performance.
Two clearly stand out from all the others though.
The first and most obvious is brilliant John C Reilly, who’s having the time of his life playing Jerry Buss, the buccaneering owner of the Lakers who invented the whole Showtime era.
Even he, however, has to play second fiddle when he shares a scene with the permanently enraged General Manager Jerry West, played by Jason Clarke, whose turn becomes even more impressive when you realise he’s from Queensland, Australia, not West Virginia.
Remarkably though, you end up liking both men.
And I say “remarkably”, because in the hands of any British TV dramatist, both would be left without a single redeeming feature on account of them being white, male and in charge.
The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 probably imagine this sort of crass stereotyping and lack of moral ambiguity makes them progressive. It doesn’t.
It just means they’ve all boxed themselves into a woke corner and now cannot make any decent dramas beyond real-life crime sagas, like The Sixth Commandment, which are only safe territory because the channels’ obsessive political agenda cannot interfere with the facts.
This is not to say Winning Time is perfect, either.
Aside from a couple of terrible hairpieces, its major fault is that some female characters are saintly to the point of being bland and one-dimensional.
It remains so far beyond the talent and range of British TV though, it could make you weep.
And if you disagree? Don’t worry, another pale corpse and ballsy, deadpan female detective will be along any minute.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: “The Madchester music scene was most closely associated with which city in North West England?”
Bernie: “Newcastle.”
The Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “The 2000 Ang Lee film that was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar is called Crouching Tiger, Hidden what?”
Dr Punam Krishan: “Cupboard.”
Romesh: “In UK football in 2022 what national team qualified for the men’s football World Cup for the first time in 64 years?”
Carol McGiffin: “Southampton.”
And Ben Shephard: “The name of which historic English city is an anagram of ROD FOX?”
Chris: “London.” BLELNED
Random TV irritations
LIFE Stories failing to find one single “funny” thing that Ruby Wax has ever said.
Saturday’s Pointless Celebrities featuring six people I’d genuinely never clapped eyes on before and another I wished I hadn’t (Nicola Thorp).
ITV’s absolutely dreadful Cooking With The Stars making Celebrity MasterChef look like Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation.
And the news that Owain Wyn Evans, the drumming Welsh weather haemorrhoid, has: “Joined Strictly.”
To which the only possible response is, of course he has. Of course he bloody has.
ALONE IS HARD TO BEAR
FIRST new rule of television?
The more drone footage a show uses, the less point there is in actually watching.
Channel 4 survival contest Alone sends 11 sob stories off to the Canadian wilderness to starve to death or be eaten by the bears
The latest example being a Channel 4 survival contest called Alone, where they’ve sent 11 sob stories off to the Canadian wilderness to starve to death or be eaten by the bears.
A laudable enough aim, if it hadn’t already been done by Naked And Afraid on the Discovery Channel, who realised viewers need professional cameramen and a bare butt or two to see them through the tedious business of fire lighting.
The local apex predators are also disappointingly shy here.
For entertainment and death, then, we’re really relying on the stupidity of contestants like Mike the joiner, who nearly severed an artery with an axe after just four hours, and Louie, who’s armed himself with a bow and arrow and is hoping to “Get some beaver”, which is a little sexist . . .
All the prodded grizzly turds and spooky sound effects in the world, though, still cannot hide the truth about Alone.
It’s a lot of s**t, but very few bears.
THE Women’s World Cup is above all criticism (Part 12,438).
Sweden v USA, in Melbourne, Laura Woods: “Let’s have a look at the penalties USA missed, starting with Megan Rapinoe.
Megan Rapinoe missed a penalty during Sweden v USA
What do you think, Fran? Was it a good penalty?”
Good? It nearly bloody landed on the Neighbours set. So, no, it wasn’t a good penalty. It wasn’t good at all.
TV quiz. Who said: “I love to stick my tongue in things, but I’m a bit afraid of the pricks here?”
A) Fred Sirieix eating sea urchins on Remarkable Places To Eat?
Or B) Rita Ora on Love Island?
Lookalike of the week
This week’s winner is German women’s team manager Martina Voss-Tecklenburg and talkSPORT’s long-word generator Simon Jordan
Sent in by Paul Field, Belgrade.
Great Women’s World Cup insights
RACHEL BROWN-FINNIS: “As a neutral onlooker, I’m not a neutral.”
Fara Williams: “The cross comes in only when it comes in.”
And Robyn Cowen: Nigeria’s game plan has been executed to perfection, they just haven’t scored.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray).
NAME of the week. The UEFA official who carried out Monday’s Champions League draw, Tobias Hedstuck.
And if his nickname isn’t Uphisownarse, I despair for humanity.
TUESDAY, August 8, Channel 5, 8pm, The Yorkshire Vet, Christopher Timothy: “In Huddersfield, Matt’s in uncharted waters trying to fix Kermit the frog’s anal prolapse.”
Which, unless Fozzie Bear turns up next week to have his scrotal ablation sorted, is the most remarkable thing I’ll hear on TV all year.
Olivia Attwood married her match on TV this week
MEANWHILE, on Olivia (Attwood) Marries Her Match, the Love Islander’s mum arrives dressed in her nightwear, on wedding day morning, with a tray of nibbles, prompting the question: “What are those things that look like giant flaps?”
They’re giant flaps, Olivia.
TV GOLD
THE return of Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty, on Sky Atlantic.
Nick Stapleton and the other heroes on BBC1’s Scam Interceptors.
Comedian Troy Hawke, from Greeters Guild, ambushing Gianfranco Zola at Saturday’s Game For Ukraine: “You’re wonderfully put together, you’re like a robotically enhanced Henry Winkler.”
And guest judge Danny Jones providing the first ever funny respon- se on Celebrity MasterChef when Lisa Snowdon was overcome by the spiciness of James Buckley’s gochujang chicken: “I think he could’ve added something to the mix.”
“Gaviscon?”
