Comments on: Wrong Door grows out of Web

Wrong Door grows out of Web

Devonian — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:54:38 -0800

The BBC has a new sketch show, called Wrong Door. It's very heavy on CGI - indeed, the official blurb calls it 'a parallel world where the effects you see in TV and movies are real'. And it's funny - check out the trailers on YouTube. And it has Brian Blessed and a spaceship shaped like a giant silver cock and balls. Really, what's not to love? But the best bit isn't in the show,

It's that the writer got the commission through work he did on the enthusiastically childish, obscene and clever B3ta bulletin board. If you don't know it, get thee hence - it's a marvellous amalgam of Photoshopped jokes, community ragging, feelthy gossip and playground humour by grown-ups. Only the Web can do this, men. Salute!

By: MrMerlot

MrMerlot — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:02:34 -0800

The trailer seems to be rather weak. Without all the CGI, how would the joke be funny? Now compare it to, say, this.

By: droplet

droplet — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:11:23 -0800

Why do I love England? Only in England would there be an egg wrangler on the crew of a television show.

By: brain cloud

brain cloud — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:17:34 -0800

Heee!

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:21:50 -0800

'On BBC3' is enough of a reason not to bother watching something. 'On BBC 3' and 'made by someone off B3ta' is pretty much a recipe for wet shit. (The clips confirmed my prejudices.)

By: Henry C. Mabuse

Henry C. Mabuse — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:23:03 -0800

Immediate footage of Blessed in spaceship required.

By: Henry C. Mabuse

Henry C. Mabuse — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:24:25 -0800

Oh, he's not *in* the spaceship? Then fuckit.

By: mumkin

mumkin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:31:48 -0800

It would appear that all of the video clips that are inline on the show's site are restricted to UK-based IPs. Grrrr. Still, nice Flash development, that.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:34:18 -0800

Heee! Well that raised a smile but all the rest of the clips I've seen have just inspired hatred for all those Hoxton Finned, Shorditch Twatish, Nathan Barley types who get to piss good money up the wall making what passes for 'comedy' on BBC3 nowadays

By: panboi

panboi — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:00:29 -0800

a spaceship shaped like a giant silver cock and balls. Really, what's not to love? I see BBC3 are going for that tricky 8-12 year-old schoolboy demographic.

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:02:09 -0800

ithout all the CGI, how would the joke be funny? Now compare it to, say,Monthy Python Indeed something completely different. The CGI one ends up ridiculing tangentially investment in ineffective technology, but the attention is all on the soldiers being shot up a cannon, a body gag like slipping on a banana. Monthy use absurdities and exxageration to whip the officiers class, so detached from reality (there's a war out there!) and incompetent (the doctor) it's funny "because it's real". Or so seems to me.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:05:47 -0800

... a spaceship shaped like a giant silver cock and balls Wow, ripping off a gag from a ten year old Austin Powers movie? That's edgy for you.

By: Faze

Faze — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:18:31 -0800

If your metric for judging every new comedy is "Is it as good as 'Monty Python,' and if it's good, is it good in the same way as 'Monty Python'," you'll dismiss everything right off the bat, and never enjoy anything new. You probably toss a new book aside and sigh, "not as good as Nabokov," or switch off every new band, "not quite the Beatles..."

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:39:53 -0800

If your metric for judging every new comedy is "Is it as good as 'Monty Python' Then you'll form a prejudice allright. Yet comparisons of "how fun it turned out to be" are legit, having seen the show. Blackadder, Monthy and Couplings, so far, turned out to be the most entertaining pieces of brit tv I have seen so far. I probably am missing much, but not by prejudice.

By: opsin

opsin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:44:13 -0800

I see BBC3 are going for that tricky 8-12 year-old schoolboy demographic. You've seen Lab Rats then? And I note the CGI this show is filled with all looks to have that same slightly low-rent, shiny, BBC CG dept look. It's one of the things that helps to killany BBC show with CG! There is so much dreadful shite being called comedy around at the moment. Hurry up new series of Peep Show.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:46:39 -0800

Without all the CGI, how would the joke be funny? You mean without the central point of the joke - seeing all those soldiers being blasted out of the cannon? Yeah, that wouldn't be quite as funny.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:47:32 -0800

So it's Monkey Dust, but shit?

By: Flashman

Flashman — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:47:52 -0800

Is it even CGI? You'd be surprised by what the BBC can get away with.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:11:15 -0800

If the clips on youtube are the best Wrong Door can come up with, they ought to have spent the CGI money on writing.

By: MrMerlot

MrMerlot — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:25:50 -0800

Faze, mate, life's too short for schlock like this

By: bjrn

bjrn — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:32:26 -0800

I miss Monkey Dust (well, not all of Monkey Dust, but quite a lot of it). This doesn't seem to be very much like it though.

By: Devonian

Devonian — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:33:39 -0800

Oh dear, such cynicism among the young. The trailers made me laugh. Some more than others, and some a lot. Perhaps that's because I'm a member of the North London Media Mafia (we'll make you a pitch you can't refuse, capeesh?), even if my position in the hierarchy is ripping off parking meters. But I've been an enthusiastic and critical consumer of UK broadcast comedy for thirty years, and put in the hours on teh intarnets in search of sites of delight: Wrong Door is a very promising synthesis of the two. If you hate it, meh. Nobody's going to clockwork orange you. And yes, there will be things there that you've seen before (Willy jokes? Let's go back to Aristophanes). But nobody's asking you to pony up - take it or leave it. Nice to have the choice, no?

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:08:06 -0800

I hate CGI sometimes, I really do.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:19:59 -0800

... a spaceship shaped like a giant silver cock and balls Wow, ripping off a gag from a ten year old Austin Powers movie? That's edgy for you. It's even worse.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:07:35 -0800

FRESH HORSES!

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:59:07 -0800

I watched half a dozen of the trailers and thought that they were pretty much void of humor. Hopefully those weren't the funniest bits in the show.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:22:34 -0800

Some of them made me guffaw. There were some nicely surreal bits.

By: MythMaker

MythMaker — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:38:17 -0800

The whole first episode is buried in the flash mess on the BBC site. I dunno... it didn't do much for me, really. I guess it's not my sense of humor.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:49:56 -0800

bjrn wrote: I miss Monkey Dust (well, not all of Monkey Dust, but quite a lot of it). I wonder if the reason it's never been repeated is down to the (brilliant) sketches about the hapless Brummie terrorists. Also, it strikes me that there's already been a superb show done in a the B3ta style (in terms of animation, not writing): I Am Not An Animal.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:13:00 -0800

You probably toss a new book aside and sigh, "not as good as Nabokov," No, I generally let other people be the guinea pigs for new products. If smart folk I generally trust all spend hours and hours (and perhaps lots of money) reading, watching, and listening to tripe and come back to report that only X, Y, and Z were really worth their time and money, I might get around to trying X, Y, and Z. Nabokov had many contemporaries and I am not about to waste my time attempting to read them all when herds of noble guinea pigs have sacrificed their time to make sure I don't have to. I do occasionally sample entirely new products like the one we're discussing here. Judging by that sample, it's not worth my time. If masses of smart guinea pigs later come back to tell me it's fantastic, I might give it another shot.

By: twine42

twine42 — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:42:16 -0800

Wow... how incredibly dull. I don't think I've found a single UK TV comedy funny for about 5 years. Putting the label BBC3 on it just makes it a hundred times worse. It's odd because Radio2/Radio4 and even BBC7 manage to create really impressive comedy and comedy drama. There's been nothing on TV recently that's a patch on Cabin Pressure, for example. All this seems to prove is that either CGI is a new cool buzzword for TV or putting a man in a room with a PC is now cheaper than employing a props department. Seriously, the CGI canon thing could have been done by Monty Python however many years ago. Standard tank type arrangement, some speeded up footage and a hundred incredibly unlifelike manequins. The thing is that it would have been funnier because it would have relied on the interaction of the people and the leadup/cooldown from the canon scene rather than crappy computer work and the "punchline" of 'It's a work in progress'...

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:36:08 -0800

You've seen Lab Rats then I did. Then I called the NHS and scheduled MRSA insertion therapy for my eyes since it couldn't be mush worse.

By: Lleyam

Lleyam — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:41:27 -0800

Aw, BBC3 is a'ight. But this is a load of crap. Not even a slight smile from me, let alone a great rip roaring guffaw.