OTT: The book

…in book form.

Yep, after all-but pledging over a year ago in our comments section that he would produce a paper compendium of the best of the website, Mark Jones from Broken TV has now done precisely that.

Priced £16.99, Off The Telly: The Best Bits of the British TV Website, 1999-2009 is available here.

It weighs in at over 300,000 words and 678 pages. Any profits from this endeavour will go to British Alzheimer’s charities.

In the meantime, website TV Cream is running a competition until June 3, 2011, where you can win a special version of the book. See here for more details.

The end

With the recent technical difficulties and all (still not resolved at the time of writing, but our webhosts have now fallen silent, so who knows?) I’ve been prompted to make a decision about this site’s future, or lack of.

As of today – and fast on the back of Ian’s excellent and final chart of the decade - there will be no more updates on offthetelly.co.uk. However, it will remain online, as is, until its HTML rusts into pixel dust… or someone pulls the plug. I will, though, be switching off the comments in due course.

The thing is, the recent technical kerfuffle really brought it home to me that I no longer have the time or the appetite to keep this thing running. When it looked like it might be wiped off the web altogether I actually felt – well – a fair bit of relief.

In addition, I  also firmly believe OTT’s time has passed. We’ve done 10 years of this and it was lots of fun, right?

So it’s a massive thank-you to everyone who’s contributed over the years. You’re all great, but I must give a special tip of the Graham Kibble-White-shaped hat to Jane Redfern who has tirelessly built and rebuilt various versions of the site. She’s my personal unknown stunt(wo)man who’s made me look so fine (er, kind of). My gratitude also to Jack Kibble-White, Ian Jones, Steve Williams and TJ Worthington who between them have probably written about 70 percent of what’s up here. In fact I’m going to attribute about 30 percent to Ian alone. Additional thanks to the man who exhales, David J Bodycombe, who’s benevolently hosted us for ages now… while also making BBC4′s Only Connect. What a hero.

Plus, a public apology to Jack and Steve who’d both been working on a huge new feature for the site which will now never be published.

I shan’t get all dewy-eyed, don’t worry. I did that a few months back (and doesn’t that valedictory penultimate paragraph now look a bit rubbish?). Oh, and in terms of life-frittering online projects, I’m still well tooled-up. TV Cream keeps me terribly busy and my enthusiasm for it is a long way from flagging.

My only regret is we won’t be around to file another daft big General Election report. I really liked them.

Si's matters

It was the year in which The X Factor notched up its best ever ratings, Torchwood turned into a critically acclaimed BBC1 ratings blockbuster, C4 struggled to produce any memorable comedy, Not Going Out and Primeval were both axed… and then recommissioned, Chris Tarrant yet again failed to nail it with a Millionaire successor, and Richard and Judy got off  the TV sofa, possibly for good.

So, 2009. Here’s how we saw it »

Was it "the best Christmas ever?"

As ever, OTT has written-up this year’s Christmas telly, for our big and bulky Festive Television section.

Obviously, with nine out of the 10 most watched Yuletide shows, BBC1 was yet again the ratings victor with strong showings in particular for EastEnders, The Royle Family and Doctor Who.

But how did the big day play out across all the terrestrial channels?

Read the feature »

[Oh, and OTT's review of the year follows shortly...]

Scenes from a decade

OTT doesn’t have much truck with the idea of a “golden age of television”. Every era has programmes that are exceptionally good and desperately poor. If there has to be a “golden age”, then it began when TV was invented. It hasn’t stopped. Not even in the face of some of the telly from the last decade.

The ratio of small screen triumphs to travesties is the same as it ever was; there are just more of them. The past 10 years weren’t characterised by new lows or highs; just different ones. What we watched didn’t really change; how and when we watched did.

Here’s a commemoration of sorts in the shape of an A-Z of the decade’s television»

The decade of Big Brother

As 2009 winds down, like everyone else, OTT is indulging in a spot of house-keeping and tidying up the last decade of television.

So, we’ve assembled our list of the shows we feel have been the most influential in shaping the last 10 years of telly. They’re not necessarily the very best the noughties have had to offer, or the most popular. But, as we hopefully justify, all have left a mark on the TV landscape.

Which, from our selection was “a messy flop, but of a kind with which the BBC flirted shamelessly for the rest of the decade”?

What series ushered in a suite of similarly themed programmes, pretty much most of which ended up being cancelled by C4 as it sought to reinforce its public service remit at the decade’s end?

And can you name the pivotal reality show which featured a crunch sequence from a Travelodge Hotel conference room?

For those answers, Read the feature »

Your starter for 2010...

Alongside planned end-of-the-decade business, OTT is hunkering down once again to prepare its review of the year’s television.

And, as always, we’d really like your contribution. Jack Kibble-White will be putting together the finished piece (and to see previous years, click here) so please email him your comments, essays, paeans and poison pen letters to him by Tuesday December 15 (erm, 2009).

Jack’s address is jack@tvcream.co.uk.

Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel

ITV1 launched its remake of The Prisoner to British press last night at the Odeon West End in London’s Leicester Square, screening the first two episodes to journalists.

Written by Bill Gallagher (Lark Rise to Candleford, Out of the Blue) and co-produced with America’s AMC, it’s a worthwhile undertaking indeed, despite the huge expectation the project provokes. In an era when US TV is big on puzzles and ellipitical plotting, The Prisoner fits in very well indeed. And what it really has in its favour is this version is a series, with a finite run (six episodes) and a definite end. So there’s no fear of a plot in flux, as showrunners consider the possibility of further seasons. We will get answers.

Introducing the screening, Sir Ian McKellen said: “It was about 18 months ago when the scripts arrived. It was only for part one, I think. Bill Gallagher’s name on the outside, so I was already excited. And the title made me read it immediately, which I don’t always do. When I read episode one, I then needed to read episode two. Then I needed to get  three and four and five. But long before six was written I said, ‘yes’.

“It was just a job that I had to take. I didn’t even know who else was going to be in it at that point, nor the fact we were going to go to Southern Africa .

“There have been ups and there have been downs, but all along I knew this was going to work. Then, last week, I saw the whole thing in one stretch. By God, that was confirmed. I think the work on the screen is absolutely astonishing. And look beyond the main characters and see what’s going on in the background. You’ll see some of the finest performances from young actors gathered together. And the leading man, Jim Caviezel? Well, to die for.

“What can I tell you? You can’t talk about this, because you start unravelling the plot… But there are clues all the way through. This is a thriller and if you want to know what’s going to happen next, listen hard, put your popcorn down and just revel in it.”

I mentioned expectations, and of course you can’t avoid them watching this. They make you second-guess the show in a way you wouldn’t a new commission. So, whereas in any other instance, learning more about 6′s mysterious backstory would make perfect sense, here, as soon as his occupation is confirmed, it diminishes him a little. Mind you, Caviezel is great in the role of 6. More passive than Patrick McGoohan, but capable of raging against the machine when the story needs it. McKellan, as 2, is also impressive. He plays it passive-aggressive. Slow, deliberate movements. A quintessential gent. Menacing, but not surprising.

So far, the reviews in the US, where its currently airing, have been mixed. From what I’ve seen so far, I’ll definitely be seeing the final four episodes.

ITV's digital portfolio

So it’s happy fifth birthday, today, to ITV3. And a tip of the hat to ITV4 which is also celebrating – four years of service.

By way of a tribute, one-man OTT-updating machine Dominic Small returns with a history of ITV’s digital strategy. From ONDigital, to ITV2, there have certainly been ups and downs. As Dominic reminds us, the network’s nascent dabbles in the digital market weren’t very successful…

“ITV regional operators did dip their toes into the satellite pool quite early on, with mixed results. Many of the ITV franchisees of the time worked together to launch a new UK-based satellite channel with Europe-wide broadcast, though this pioneering venture – Superchannel – was not as successful as had been hoped and later ended up in the hands of an Italian firm, and subsequently the American broadcaster NBC, who dumped much of the UK content for US-produced output.”

For more, Read the feature »

River carnage forever!

Something new. That’s what you can expect from ‘The Waters of Mars’, which was screened to journalists this morning at London’s Soho Hotel.

To describe it as “dark” isn’t terribly helpful, but this is probably as hopeless (in the sense of lack of optimism) Doctor Who has ever been. Screening over, and in the Q&A with Russell T Davies and David Tennant, one person was moved to ask if they still considered the show suitable for children.

Make no mistake, this is excellent, excellent Doctor Who, even if at times it just doesn’t feel like – well – Doctor Who. In the final sequences, our hero has never seemed more alien, or out of control. A mad dog Time Lord, fast going insane with the knowledge of his own imminent death.

Like I said, this is something new.

Obviously, I’m being slight with the details, because I don’t want to ruin the fun. So let’s give you something specific: the Ice Warriors are namechecked.

Oh, and an old foe makes a cameo.

And now that I’ve bounced back fom the screening (it’s quite a tumultous thing), I feel safe to say: One of the best Doctor Who stories yet. Easily the most challenging.

It airs on BBC1, Sunday November 15.