hamilton-54-580314 Reviews

Alan Partridge (2013)

Hugely Disappointing

[4/10 · 14 August 2014]

Massive fan of Alan Partridge down the years. I realize that the lengthened format almost universally fails to live up to the shortened one but this offering fell far below what I had expected from one of my all- time favorite British comedic brands. This was very surprising as Steve Coogan/Alan Partridge has done such a fantastic job down the years of limiting his output & thus placing any new stuff at a huge premium for avid fans like myself. I enjoyed Coogan's similarly formulaic The Parole Officer from 2001 far more than this lazy, tired, insult to one of the top British comedy brands of the last 30 years. The reasons for the failure of this effort in my eyes are a combination of weakened casting (widened) & the inability to use Partridge as the singular focus under the limitations of the format.

7de Laan (2000– )

Worst Show Among Many Terrible SA "soapies"

[1/10 · 4 July 2014]

This show is an insult to anyone with a double digit or higher IQ. Predictable & corny & a waste of the SABC's meager budget. You have token representation by people who can't speak the Afrikaans language properly yet insist on communicating via the language & story lines that are simplistic & repeated often. South Africa produces a very low quality of public television in general but this is among its worst quality offerings.

The show is based in a fictional street where an entire community is able to find employment at either a coffee shop, community newspaper or travel agency. Every character is only able to date from a potential - heterosexual only - pool of 2-3 characters & the writers attempt to add American soap style drama to the most laughable of mundane issues such as fund-raising for a hockey tour & the electrical inspection of a building. So bad it verges on the amusing - though that novelty itself fades with time.