2022 was the television year when Alex Scott, Joe Lycett, Rosie Jones, drag queens, empire-bashing and every other spirit-crushing, woke self-indulgence became almost compulsory, along with idiotic disclaimers for any old BBC classic which continuity announcers warned us: “reflected attitudes of the time.”
There were honourable exceptions, of course, like the brilliant BBC1 drama SAS Rogue Heroes, but even that came with mimsy BBC warnings about “violence” and “upsetting scenes”, for the benefit of all those delicate souls who thought World War Two was resolved by group therapy.
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For reasons I don’t entirely understand, 2022 was also the year TV welcomed back Friday Night Live, The Big Breakfast, The Games and Embarrassing Bodies, while saying good riddance to Holby City and Mock The Week, and a much fonder farewell to Neighbours, which promptly announced it would be back next year on Amazon Freevee.
In time-honoured fashion, I’ve tried to dissect the best and worst of all those comings and goings and everything else that happened on the telly these past 12 months, with my annual review of the year.
BEST REALITY TV/TALENT SHOW CONTESTANTS: A three-way tie between Matt Hancock on I’m A Celeb, Dancing On Ice’s helmeted hazard Bez and Tony Adams, who single-handedly saved Strictly Come Dancing, with the absolute highlight of his run being the joyful Grandstand-themed cha-cha-cha, which left the judges so helpless with laughter they could barely raise their paddles to give him a score.
WORST REALITY TV CONTESTANT: Married At First Sight: UK’s Thomas: “Hi hens, the cock’s arrived.”
He sure has.
WORST SALES PITCH: Channel 5, Marbella: 24 Hour Party People, Robyn Addison: “Marbella is a world apart from downmarket neighbours like Torremolinos.
Since the world’s best-known superstars started coming here in the 1950s it’s focused on the very top end and it’s now a place where Vladimir Putin hangs out.”
TV NAME OF THE YEAR: Location director on Planet Sex: The Orgasm Gap, Krysia Plonka, was just beaten by Embarrassing Bodies masturbation expert Dr Tosin.
PROP OF THE YEAR: The talking penis on Disney+’s hugely enjoyable Pam & Tommy.
Not to be confused with the talking Nick Knowles on DIY SOS.
BEST DRAMA: Take your pick between The White Lotus, The Responder, with Martin Freeman, The Bear, Top Boy and
Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty, which would get my vote just for the performance of John C Reilly as owner Jerry Buss.
But a special mention should go to the thrilling BBC1 series SAS Rogue Heroes.
That rarest thing.
A British drama devoid of self-loathing, empire guilt and gear-crunching lectures about racism, sexism and misogyny and a box-ticked cast.
I’d love to think it would catch on.
WORST DRAMA: I’ll allow cases to be made for DI Ray, The Control Room and Marriage, but I’m going with Trigger Point, where Vicky McClure’s bomb disposal expert Lana Washington had the same reaction to every bit of bad news.
“It’s a mercury tilt switch.” “S***” “Security alert at South London University.” “S***” “It’s a GFP.” “S.***” It might get a second series. S***.
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Contenders were: The Real Mo Farah, The Man Who Bought Cricket, BBC2’s Muhammad Ali series, Ukraine: Life Under Attack, Night Coppers, 24 Hours In Police Custody and Disney+’s Welcome To Wrexham, detailing the unlikeliest ever takeover of a football club, with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
But none of them could quite match the impact of BBC2’s extraordinary film about the Russian opposition leader, Navalny.
Once seen, never forgotten.
WORST DOCUMENTARY: Illegal To Be Me.
A disingenuous load of woke bollocks which saw Tom “Sick to be British” Daley blame every single misfortune ever visited upon the Commonwealth’s LGBTQ+ on the British Empire but was too cowardly to draw a link between those three countries/territories where being gay carries the death penalty — Pakistan, Brunei and northern Nigeria — and Islam.
MOST WELCOME SILENCE: Nothing I thought could ever stop the perpetual din coming from Channel 4’s reboot of The Big Breakfast.
Until this exchange happened at Manchester’s Pride festival on August 27’s show.
Reporter Harriet Rose: “It’s Melvin’s first Pride, any tips for him?”
Reveller: “Don’t get monkeypox.”
MOST UNWELCOME SILENCE: All those long, meaningful ones which took the place of dialogue and led nowhere on Marriage, with Sean Bean and Nicola Walker, which also won the prize for the year’s most insanely irritating theme tune.
Brace yourselves: “To the side. To the side, to the side . . .”
BIGGEST HYPOCRITE: Another dead heat between ITV’s World Cup pundit Gary Neville, lecturing us about the evils of the British government, while taking the bloodstained Qatari shilling, and “social justice warrior” Joe Lycett, who neglected to mention he’d gigged in Qatar during his angry Got Your Back condemnation of David Beckham’s promotion of the Arab nation.
For their troubles, Beckham was paid several million, Lycett “A few hundred quid”.
Which doesn’t mean he’s any less of a hypocrite, it just means Beckham’s a bigger star.
MOST WELCOME EXIT: The witless and graceless Mock The Week which departed with the teaser: “If the answer is 17 years, what’s the question?” How long has Mock The Week outstayed its welcome?
LEAST WELCOME EXIT: Channel 5’s Neighbours, which exited with a superb cameo from Hollywood star Guy “Mike Young” Pearce, plus equally welcome appearances from Kylie, Jason, as Charlene and Scott, Paul “Des Clarke” Keane, Peter “Shane Ramsay” O’Brien, Ian “Harold Bishop” Smith and even a visitation by the ghost of Madge Ramsay, played by Anne Charleston.
The last message we saw was simple but perfect: “Thanks for loving us.” Whatever happens on Amazon, this is how I’ll always remember a sunny, optimistic show that never took itself too seriously.
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAIL OF THE YEAR: Sue Perkins’s great grandmother on an otherwise forgettable episode of Who Do You Think You Are? Fanny King.
BEST SHOW: To the above lists of dramas and documentaries, I would add: Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, The 1% Club, Would I Lie To You?, The Wheel, Beat The Chasers, Two Doors Down and The Masked Singer.
There wasn’t a single drama, comedy or documentary that summed up the state of the nation, politics and showbusiness more brilliantly though in 2022 than I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!
A show that had me in its grasp from the moment Matt Hancock’s solemn chat with Seann Walsh about his failed bid to become Prime Minister was interrupted by the flashing nose of a giant plastic mole, which went off with a “WOING WOING WOING” noise.
Wonderful television, hosted to perfection by Ant & Dec.
WORST SHOW: The strong contenders are: Starstruck, Meghan & Harry’s whinge-a-thon, Gino’s Cooking Up Love, Gordon Ramsay’s Future Food Stars, Open House: The Great Sex Experiment, A Question Of Sport, All Star Musicals, featuring Alex Beresford the rapping weatherman (Lethal Drizzle), Oti Mabuse’s Romeo And Duet, Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof, C4’s Make Me Prime Minister, where architect of the Iraq war Alastair Campbell told candidates they’d had a “bad idea”, and Unbreakable, a six-week Outward Bound version of Mr & Mrs, which introduced the world to celebrity plumber Charlie Mullins (Dynorod Stewart).
Worse than all of them was ITV’s RuPaul rip-off Queens For The Night, with Mr Motivator, Adam Woodyatt, Simon Gregson and Chris Hughes off Love Island taking it in turns to lecture us about toxic masculinity, bullying and sexism, while dressed as women.
May this grotesque, woke obscenity never see the light again.
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY: And finally, Bridgerton, House Of The Dragon, The Traitors and Sherwood, which took six hours to get nowhere and referred to a well-known East Midlands football team as “Notts Forest”, may all be works of unparalleled TV genius.
But, apologies, they just weren’t for me.
Happy New Year.
Alan Whicker award
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PAUL Hollywood Eats Mexico, where the host was riding a motorcycle, with motorcyclist Betty, from Mexico City’s Orchids motorcycle gang, when he asked her: “Why did you get together?”
“Because we like the motorcycle.”
Worst death scene
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VISCOUNT Bridgerton’s fatal bee sting, on the Netflix Regency drama, wasn’t pretty, but it was a model of dignity compared to the long, lonely death Rebel Wilson suffered hosting the Baftas in March.
“Because of the gender pay gap I won’t be 007 . . . I’ll be 004.5.”
Capture of the year
CELEBRITY Hunted, in the Cotswolds, where Made In Chelsea’s Ollie Locke and his husband Gareth were apprehended just before entering The Hollow Bottom.
Best live TV moment
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IT’S 3-3 in the greatest World Cup final of all time, Kylian Mbappe has just equalised for the second time, the entire stadium is in a state of utter bedlam and TV’s finest co- commentator Ally McCoist still has the presence of mind to say: “First person ever to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final where all three have gone over the line.”
Worst virtue signal
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BBC1’S Eilidh Barbour and Alex Scott, who thought England’s women beating Norway 8-0 on their way to winning the Euros was the right moment to criticise the team and substitutes for being “too white”.
It wasn’t. There’s no right time to do that.
Insights
- MOST DISAGREEABLE BUDDHIST: I’m A Celeb’s Boy George. I swear, the more he chanted, groaned and honked away in that Australian forest, the more arsey, conspiratorial and downright unpleasant he became. What sort of monster he’d be without this soul-searching pantomime, I don’t know. But it’s got to be worth giving cheeseburgers and atheism another try, hasn’t it?
- GREATEST SPORTING INSIGHT: Eni Aluko: “Richarlison’s got 19 goals in 40 appearances. You do the math. It’s one goal a game
Dumb quiz show answers
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THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which Scotsman wrote the novel The Master Of Ballantrae?”
Peter: “Walter Smith.”
Lightning, Zoe Lyons: “The Chancellor of Germany from 1969-1974 was called Willy . . . ?” Josh: “Thorne.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Which 20th Century Soviet leader is often referred to as ‘Uncle Joe’?”
Darrel: “Joe Pasquale.”
Ben Shephard: “In 2021, Christie’s auction house sold Waterloo Bridge Effet De Brouillard – a painting by the French impressionist artist Claude who?”
Cher: “Van Damme.”
TalkSPORT, Alan Brazil: “What did Alexander Graham Bell invent?”
Gabriel Agbonlahor: “No idea.”
Ally McCoist: “You use it more than most.”
“Aftershave?”
Best and worst
- BEST CHANNEL 4 GENITALS-RELATED DOCUMENTARY: The Man With A Penis On His Arm, which was a genuine television show rather than Kate Bush’s disappointing follow-up to The Man With The Child In His Eyes.
- WORST CHANNEL 4 GENITALS-RELATED DOCUMENTARY: My Massive Cock. A finer case for privatising this fraudulent outfit you won’t see.
- WORST COMPLIMENT: Britain’s Got Talent, Amanda Holden to cerebral palsy comedian Eva Abley: “You’ve got funny bones.”
Lookalikes of the year
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