Grinds My Gears!! - Issue 2

Keeping with the trend of the last issue, I'm going to continue on my slashing of bad tv with a gear grinding on new Irish dramas on RTÉ. Some of these are old-ish so I'll try my best to recall for you what they were all about.

The Big Bow Wow
This one was set in Dublin, and was mainly centered around the sex lives of several characters. One prostitute, two homosexuals, three students, a teacher having an affair with one student, two brothers sleeping with the prostitute and two particular office workers and one of their fathers. The general plot of the whole thing was pretty bogey in case you can't see that from the characters.

"The Big Bow Wow" itself was a bar, which frequently featured, hence the shows name. It's virtually impossible for me to re-call any events as the show never continued past its first series - an indication of how awful it was. I guess they figured the theme of sex would drag audiences to it. Obviously not, as one of the few episodes I actually watched had the prostitute make love to one of the brothers in the bathroom of the BBW.

Here's a link to a video review of the 3rd episode:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rte.ie/tv/bigbowwow/images/end_side.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rte.ie/tv/bigbowwow/&h=121&w=178&sz=4&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=1hevl98dhgQjmM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbig%2Bbow%2Bwow%2Btv%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

I think in total I watched 3 out of the 13 episodes, which were in a row, as I actually thought it might be good to watch. Thankfully no. In the 3 episodes I watched it was pretty difficult to tell where anything was going, characters were pretty lame with no real background at all.

Irish Drama Cac-rating: 6/10

Love is the Drug
This follows the BBW on so many fronts. Main theme is also love (surprise-surprise) and sex. Only in this case RTÉ must have thought that taking the action out of Dublin and to Dundalk would up the interests of the nation. No. This one is centered around a family. Father, mother, three sons. The parents are having difficulties in their sex lives and so try to spice things up with vibrators, oral sex and the likes after meeting another 'active' couple. The eldest son is getting married but is having trouble with impotence, the second has no love life at all and the youngest has a girlfriend going to college.

Once again the characters are exceptionally lame. I actually watched all of this as it preceeded whatever it was I wanted to watch on Monday nights. Like BBW, Love is the Drug lasted one series.

Irish Drama Cac-rating: 7/10

Pure Mule
Set in 'rural' Ireland - no big town or city - Pure Mule focuses on....guess what...the sex lives of two brothers. Can you see the trend in the themes of these programmes? Though not as long episode wise at the previous two, Pure Mule had generated much more hype, and actually lived up to an extent to its hype. Characters were slightly better but the recurring theme of sex in these dramas gets very old very quickly.

Irish Drama Cac-rating: 5/10

Trouble in Paradise
Where to actually begin??? After trying to watch this first episode I think it's impossible for me to put together a fair argument. I mean...what time period is it set in?? Why are there cowboys?? Why does it suck so much?? I won't go any further. If any of you have tried to watch this like I have, you can understand where I'm coming from. I do believe this is a one series deal.

Irish Drama Cac-rating: 10/10

So now you ask: "But you didn't really grind your gears over this??" Well I'm getting to that now! The real question here is why do RTÉ continue to broadcast this rubbish. The evidence that none of the above have ever attracted enough attention to merit a second series is indication enough of how terrible they are. Why should our tv schedule have to suffer on Mondays? The new series of Scrubs has been airing in the US for three months now. Why have RTÉ yet to get it here? Even a lame episode of Scrubs (of which there are very few, in fact quite possibly none) far surpasses anything that the above could produce on a "good" day. Sure there are things like Dan and Becs which are decent at best, but we really need something worth viewing. Is it a sign of how Irish writers approach modern Ireland? Is Trouble in Paradise an image of this country we want to show to the world? I think not. While it isn't totally right that we should rely on American or British dramas, instead, RTÉ needs to get the finger out and stop fucking around with these excuses for Irish drama.

~Damien