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The New Girl

If you like to keep up with mainstream but kind-of-quirky comedy, you’ll have noticed, and probably tuned into Channel 4’s new series, the New Girl. Just in case you haven’t been bombarded with adverts, here is a link to the trailer. The premise of the show is that beautiful-but-quirky Jess catches her man in the act with some bogey-green vest wearing hoe and thus needs a new place to live. Cue Nick, Schmidt and Winston, three relatively attractive twenty-somethings who share an apartment and are looking for a new flatmate. Of course, they wouldn’t fit the paradigm of ‘three men living together’ without oodles of Witty Man Banter, taking their shirts off and not really knowing how to talk to women. And why do they let Jess move in? “I’m tired of living with my friend! She’s a model. All her friends are models”, she explains to the three gawping men as they review her as flat mate material. And through some crazy co-incidence, after sharing this nugget of information, Jess is accepted into the shared apartment.

Although the New Girl certainly has a comedic upper hand compared to other prime-time entertainment (it is far more LOL worthy than the Big Bang Theory, lacks the cringe worthy sexism of Two and a Half Men and not as over-quoted as Friends), there is still something incredibly jarring about the show.

Just as Disney gives women unrealistic expectations of adult men, Zooey Deschanel gives men completely impossible expectations of women. Just to confirm – when women have been upset by men they do not lie on the sofa in painstakingly cute plaid shirts and skinny jeans, sporting perfectly tousled hair and tastefully natural makeup. Yes, we lie on the sofa repeatedly watching depressing films, but I think it’s fair to say that most of us look a little more Jeremy Kyle participant than Jess. The part in the pilot episode where Jess throws on a pair of dungarees and explains ‘I was going for a Hot Farmer’s Daughter type thing, like “ooh, I’m going to go milk my cows”’ was particularly off-key. She clearly did not just find those dungarees in H&M and bought them for casual wear. Hell no. She meticulously picked them out in Beyond Retro, probably mentally integrating them into her wardrobe, to be worn with a relatively-unknown band t-shirt and espadrilles.

The writing is admittedly very funny. It is riddled with comedy gold moments and looks like it has characters who can develop worthy storylines. Is it worth watching? Yes. Enviously watching Deschanel glide around in perfect fitting size 6 vintage dresses whilst still passing as ‘kooky’ and ‘clumsy’ may be painful, but it’s worth it for a fair few decent comedy moments.

The Only Way is Desperate Christmas in Chelsea

We all know Christmas telly can be a bit hit and miss, but it seems that this year we’ve been bombarded with an influx of ‘reality’ TV Christmas specials faker than Amy Childs’s boobs. The problem with Christmas specials is that they are pretty much all filmed a good while before their airing, meaning that no one involved is remotely hyped up about Christmas a the time.  This fact has been confirmed by my mother, who shouts ‘KINGSTON ADVERT! KINGSTON ADVERT! At the Morrisons advert, filmed in Kingston market square during the mid-September heatwave. ‘Look how uncomfortable he looks in his coat!’, she yells at the television, as children flit about in fake snow. Due to the extensive time period between filming and airing these adverts, it is difficult to understand how a Christmas Special can seem remotely genuine, when filmed in mid-November.

Here is what will almost definitely happen in today’s most popular unreality shows: 

Let us begin with the mother of all reality junk; the Only Way is Essex. The BAFTA-winning series serves to be an indulgent guilty pleasure for the majority of us. The third series was admittedly a little strained – there are only so many times that ‘reem’, ‘shut up’ and ‘vajazzle’ can be said in an episode.  The series suffered in the absence of Essex heroine Amy Childs, meaning that story lines also significantly waned. The only big remaining rivalries were between Gemma and Lydia, who unconvincingly fight for the affections of a man who looks as though he is made of Playdough and sweat. But what does the Christmas special hold? Nanny Pat in another novelty outfit, Arg in Christmas jumpers and more twin-related puns from those two scary Greek men. Apparently a bunch of the gang including Joey, Mario and Chloe head to Lapland and stay in a log cabin – cue someone having to explain to Joe that father Christmas isn’t real.

Of course, who could forget the excruciatingly painful TOWIE ‘Last Christmas’ single. Christ knows why they were allowed to call this a ‘TOWIE’ single, when the only voices to be heard are those of auto tuned failed girl band member Nicola Wright and Playdough man James Argent.  The only other cast contributions are interjections of random dialogue including ‘hurry up James’ and ‘I can’t wait to get my Christmas vajazzle’ – contributions that truly add absolutely nothing to the musical prowess of this song.

Desperate Scousewives is offensive to the eyes, ears and brain cells. According the kings and queens of Scouse reality telly, Crimbo is a time to ‘flash your baubles’. Having only been able to stomach one episode of DS, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but from the Christmas episode trailer I can gather that most of the episode is going to consist of glass-eyed women glaring at each other and speaking too fast to comprehend.

Made in Chelsea, which is follow-able and occasionally engaging, also offers a Christmas special this year. If anything, it will be intriguing to find out what people who pretend to have lots of money give each other for Christmas. The episode looks to consist of women glaring at one another almost as much as those in Desperate Scousewives, except for these girls are far less likely to throw their drinks about. Expect a lot of suspiciously real-looking fur, arguments in floppy hats and painfully tasteful Christmas jumpers. Apaz the Chelsea lot jet off to Finland, so look forward to lots of husky-drawn sleigh rides amongst other things us peasants would never be able to afford. Plus, we find out the ‘truth’ about what happened with Hugo and Rosie (I thought we already knew this? Maybe it turns out nobody cheated on anyone, it was all just a misconstrued game of scrabble).

So if you’re on a Christmas break from university, college or work, I fully expect you to indulge in this brain-rotting drivel. After all, it wouldn’t be Christmas if there wasn’t brain-rotting drivel to drown ourselves in. Rubbish reality provides a much needed break from the true dullness of Christmas.