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Finding love on an island or rest in a monastery
by Conrad Astley12/ 5/2005
JUST when you think reality television can't get any lower... I
think you know where this is going.
Celebrity Love Island is the latest attempt by
producers to find a new level for the lowest common
denominator.
Realising that images of a couple of pretty nonentities getting it
on can do wonders for their ratings, as well as for the C-listers'
own careers, those clever TV execs have hit upon a brainwave. Why
don't we make a show based around trying to get them together?
Celebrity Love Island
(ITV1, starting Monday) features a
bunch of single celebrities, an attractive island backdrop, and the
presenting skills of Kelly Brook guiding us through the
drama.
The 12 celebs try to find love with each other, while viewers have
to get on those phones and decide who stays and who goes.
The show will be on every night for some time. Get used to
it.
It's almost enough for making me praise the makers of
The
Monastery
(BBC2, Tuesday) for coming up with
something slightly more high-minded, but not quite. However, could
be worth watching for the moment in which one of the contestants
asks a monk whether he ever "beats the bishop."
Town And Country
(ITV1, Sunday) is
further evidence, if any was needed, that reality TV has run out of
steam.
Coming from the makers of Wife Swap, the show takes some people
from the countryside, some people from the city, and makes them
change places for a week. Ingenious.
So the Welsh Powells head down to the big smoke, while the cockney
Greenaways give Snowdonia a go, and try to shear sheep - no doubt
with hilarious consequences.
A new documentary about Elvis, like a new series on The Beatles,
can only beg one question - is there anything left to say? Surely
all the books, articles, and films that have been made about the
King since his death have covered all possible bases.
Apparently not.
Elvis By The Presleys
(ITV1,
Wednesday) is the first time the two main women in his life -
wife Priscilla and daughter Lisa Marie - have spoken about him
openly. I'm sure it's nothing to do with the music career Lisa
Marie recently tried to launch.
However, if you want to find out more about the music he stole,
Soul Deep - The Story of Black Popular Music
(BBC2, Saturday) is the place to go. Last week's episode,
the first in the six-part series, looked at how rhythm `n' blues -
or race music as it was originally called - was taken wholesale and
passed off as white rock `n' roll, a decade later. This week will
focus on the career of former gospel singer Sam Cooke, also
featuring interviews with Ben E King and Bobby Womack.
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