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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Space Cadets

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05:29 / 14.12.05

Smoothly: I neglected to record tonight's show. Did I miss anything? Are they all still buying it, or just shy to be the first to challenge?

I caught the end of it, and I think if anyone gives it away it's going to be Charlie, who always sounds like he's repeating set lines -he has managed this curious combination of being (i) slightly too articulate on the topic of How I Feel To Be In Space Maybe and (ii) COMPLETELY EMOTIONLESS.

08:33 / 14.12.05

It’s interesting that, as things have panned out, the shills appear to be more of a hindrance than a help. I saw some of the live show last night, and while Paul was writing an epic poem about the mission, Charlie was dealing with the adrenalin by sleeping.

Have they shown what they’re doing with the rest of the cosmonots? Are they just kicking their heels in the space camp, or have they been let in on the joke?

08:47 / 14.12.05

Are we sure this is actually a hoax? - Cause real ESA research is sounding just as strange. Look.

09:03 / 14.12.05

Brilliant.

Stephanie Gacher, 31, told a press conference [that by lying in bed for two months with her feet raised higher than her head] she was "proud" to have come within touching distance of her childhood dream of going into space.

22:33 / 15.12.05

Interesting to see the response of the contestants left behind when they were told the truth. The fact that the other three are going to feel like *bigger* fools seemed to be the only thing softening their humiliation and disappointment. And when asked how they think the remaining three will feel when they learn the truth tomorrow, they were very quick in their assessment: "Gutted".

And the reveal to those in the camp was pretty gentle. Will be interested to see how they do it in the shuttle. Will they sit them down and break it to them delicately, or will they just open the doors?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:47 / 15.12.05

Read something in one of the tabloids yesterday about how one of the contestants actually gave up her job to go on this... if that's true, then it's mean on another level.

10:58 / 16.12.05

They should fake an alien attack or pretend its going to crash, see how far they can push it.

11:48 / 16.12.05

Five grand and a trip on the vomit comet would go some way to assuaging my disappointment, though.

paranoidwriter waves hello

19:34 / 16.12.05

Anyone watching this? My shoulders are up, my teeth are clenched, and yet.... Interesting?

paranoidwriter waves hello

19:36 / 16.12.05

Thank God for the commercial break, eh? That was awful.

paranoidwriter waves hello

19:53 / 16.12.05

One has to admire how they're handling it. At first I thought Paul was not going to be able control his obvious disapointment. The money helps, obviously, but their eyes look so sad. Horrible television.

20:06 / 16.12.05

Not horrible, just much less imaginative than it might have been and generally underwhelming, throughout this past week. I chortled at Mr Bimbi's ashes going up in a dustbuster though. And the boys were mighty purty.

They did acquit themselves well when the reveal came. £5000 a day and a real Russian space ride ahead would have mollified me too.

20:39 / 16.12.05

Muted and underwhelming.

22:15 / 16.12.05

Glad I missed it. It sounds horrible.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:20 / 16.12.05

They get a real Russian space ride? A vomit comet type deal? That makes the whole thing a bit less cruel, I guess... but doesn't it negate the entire point of the programme in the first place?

22:45 / 16.12.05

The whole thing was one-note to the point of being utterly pointless.

22:47 / 16.12.05

Depends on what you believe the point to have been, really.

23:16 / 16.12.05

True. If the point was fool-the-gullible-people, they kinda shot themselves in the foot by increasing the Farce Factor until they began to guess it was all unreal - and then showing them a montage of sneery Johnny Vaughan to prepare them for the big (non-)reveal. If the point was anything else, it was too slight to hang a series upon.

23:20 / 16.12.05

Raising advertising revenue, I would have thought. That's the main purpose of media, isn't it?
I'm not complaining, though, as I have a tiny chink of satisfactory light: a site I built was found and used by the producers to help them fix their wonky motion controllers a few days before the "launch".

23:30 / 16.12.05

Well yes, it's about raising advertising revenue. Its point would be how it had been designed to raise advertising revenue.

00:39 / 17.12.05

The point has been advertised in TV listings as the show being something along the lines of a - ahem - "research experiment". Similar sort of thing to how Big Brother is sometimes justified. In those terms, then giving them an actual space flight kind of negates it, like Stoatie says - just do that in the first place and stick the cameras in there instead of pissing about wasting even more broadcasting time and money with the whole hoax thing, y'know?

If, on the other hand, the point was to invoke the spirit of Beadle - laugh at the goddamn fucking idiots! Go on, LAUGH! - then it was probably more successful.

00:42 / 17.12.05

I'm not sure it was successful on those terms. Beadle's stunts tended to last minutes, hours at most, before the inevitable reveal. Stretching those same stunts out for days and weeks renders them tedious and unfunny.

08:00 / 17.12.05

Blimey, we/the crew weren't being hoaxed.
Twig used Occam's razor and everything.

The Natural Way

12:00 / 17.12.05

I know!!! How could he have been so wrong?!? That's wrong. Another. bloody. tv. conspiracy. theory. proved. WRONG.

That's enough now.

23:13 / 17.12.05

I too am gobsmacked by the overall paucity of g*m*pl*ns. I'm having to reevaluate my whole approach to human behaviour.

01:31 / 18.12.05

Twig used Occam's razor and everything.

But ze's not the gullible idiot who swallowed some fatuous rumour off the internet. No, this was part of a larger conspiracy. Or it's what they would've done if they'd only thought of it. Or something. See?

You've got to feel sorry for Keri, Paul and Billy. They're not the first British space tourists; the Queen wasn't watching, she's not going to be mentioning them in her Christmas speech and making their grandparents proud of them. Instead they were humilated on a TV show that no one particularly liked. A few grand and a trip on an plane guaranteed to make you sick doesn't sound like much compensation. And I wonder if they'll feel they can trust them on that.

Johnny Vaughn said something I thought was quite interesting though. They are (probably) the only 20-somethings in the world who have experienced believing you're in space. It was interesting that Billy said all the 'profound thoughts' he'd had turned to ashes when he discovered the truth. If it could have been arranged, hypothetically, for them to go to their graves without ever learning the truth, I wonder how I'd feel about that.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:10 / 18.12.05

Next up: Cold Turkey, where twice daily you'll get to watch as a group of Heroin addicts go through withdrawal as they try to kick the habit. Maybe viewers will be able to vote who gets a fresh shot before being kicked out of the clinic daily?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:18 / 18.12.05

Some confusion here- this isn't in fact the upcoming show "Cold Turkey", in which Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and (I think) Sophie Anderton attempt to give up smoking- this is a new show "yet to be given a name".

Discussing this at work last night, and trying to come up with names for it, our office winner was "Only Fools And Horse".

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