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TV: They give us silly telly as nights draw in
by Conrad Astley30/ 9/2005
FRIENDS Reunited has got a lot to answer for. That will probably
be the thought going through detective Tom Monroe's head in
Class Of 76 (
Monday, BBC2).
When he begins investigating what looks like a suicide the maverick
cop, played by Robert Carlyle, discovers a sinister taped message.
It begins to emerge that a killer is slowly knocking off former
schoolmates who were in a primary school class back in - you've
guessed it - 1976. Being the only one in the year to fail the
cycling proficiency test can cause scars which just won't go
away.
But now the evenings are drawing in and the weather's getting
chilly, we've been given a couple of excuses to stay in with a
curry on Friday nights.
Firstly,
Rock School (
Friday, Channel 4)
may be a rip-off of an idea first developed in a very bad film,
even down to the name. Nevertheless, it still looks promising, if
only for the presence of Gene Simmons from Kiss, and for the fact
it's set in a posh boarding school.
It is followed immediately by
Spoons (
Friday,
Channel 4) a sketch show which attempts to pull off the Ricky
Gervais trick of making you not know whether to laugh or
cringe.
After the success of the recent Celebrity Shark Bait, those
camera-friendly great whites are back again, this time with
undercover reporter Donal MacIntyre tracking them down.
Killer Shark Live (
starting Sunday, Five)
describes itself as a unique, live event spread over seven
days.
Former model Melanie Paul lends a hand as a "shark wrangler" while
the crew attempt to place a camera on a shark's nose - something
which has never been done before, for fairly obvious reasons.
We're led to believe anything could happen, but as MacIntyre's on
dry land, unfortunately he'll probably be safe. He's also back with
MacIntyre's Toughest Towns (
Wednesday,
Five). Although he made his name knocking around with football
hooligans and gangsters, and spending a week trying to get mugged
on the streets of London, it seems the Irishman's fame has been his
downfall. He stays comfortably in front of the camera, and out of
reach of the thugs who might recognise him from the telly. In this
opening double-bill, he tells us why Glasgow has become Western
Europe's murder capital, before giving us the low-down on
Liverpool's drug gangs.
Who knows, he might even have something to say about Manchester
before the series is out.
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