Well this is a very curious affair. 'Allo 'Allo actually ran for over ten years from 1982 to 1992, and I must admit that I used to watch it quite a lot in the early series. I'm not sure whether it was because I was getting older or that the quality deteriorated in later series - probably a bit of both. It was a bizarre spoof of Secret Army, and it was completely politically incorrect.
Anyway, for this one-off, the producers decided to film in front of a live studio audience. Of course, I suspect that most of the original series was also filmed in front of a live studio audience, because that's the way BBC sitcoms worked. But in this instance we know it's a live audience because we keep getting unnecessary cutaways of them. Were they all member of some sort of 'Allo 'Allo Appreciation Society? It seems many of them either turned up in costume, or have had some outfits supplied to them by the Beeb. I really hope that it's the latter because I'm not sure I'd want to travel to Shepherd's Bush in Gestapo uniform - bit tasteless don't you think? Remember when Prince Harry tried it.
The programme wasn't just a new episode. It was basically a hook to hang a clips show on. So we get clips sequences of Rene and Yvette to a soundtrack of Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now. We also get lots of behind the scenes interviews with various cast members. In other words, this was pretty much the same set-up 2005's Return of the Goodies.
When you realise that the series began in 1982, it's not surprising that most of the actors have aged quite a bit. Michelle (Kirsten Cooke) was rather sexy in those early episodes - I always liked her the most. But of course Yvette (Vicki Michelle) still looks pretty much the same.
I did enjoy seeing a poe-faced Robert Kilroy-Silk moaning about the programme - whatever happened to him. But did we really need Charlie Catchpole explaining the concept of the English not understanding the French? I think we all understood that concept. There can't be many viewers of this [BBC2] programme who hadn't watched at least one episode of the original series.
If we are to get a new episode, why did we have to get constant reminders that there was an audience in the studio and it was being shot on a set? Indeed there was a terrible sequence in which Officer Crabtree taught "French" to three members of the studio audience.
Overall, I'm not sure that a documentary on its own would have been better.
There's always another quiz format, and I've only just caught up with this particular monstrosity presented by Jamie Theakston. Theakston seems to have caught an unlucky streak recently, what with this and The Search. Still - he does have an unfathomably popular London breakfast show.
But back to The People's Quiz which claims to be some kind of series long attempt to find the best quiz champion in the country. Each week, the same people come back to battle against one another to get a chance of getting through to the final where one person will walk away with £200,700. Theakston told us that this was the BBC's biggest ever prize. Quite where the cash is coming from (I rather suspect that it's from BBC Worldwide rather than from 1500 licence fees - at least I hope that's the case) or the relevance of that last £700 is not explained.
As is now compulsory in these programmes you get some pointless on-screen trash talking between contestants at various junctures. But the biggest crime the programme commits is the vast numbers of presenters it sees fit to employ. You see, the aforementioned Theakston doesn't actually ask any questions. Instead a panel of quizmasters: William G Stewart, Myleene Klass and Kate Garraway. Quite what the last two are doing here is hard to fathom. Klass is evidently there simply to wear low cut dresses, while Garraway is trying to be some kind of Anne Robinson-alike. Frankly you could ditch the pair of them as all they're doing is reading questions from a screen. Indeed Stewart could present the whole show by himself without any difficulty and it'd much improve the programme if he did.
The set is a typical post-Millionaire affair with lots of lights and dark blues. These kinds of sets are as much a cliché today as the old cream sets with contestants sitting behind a desk were in the eighties. Try something different.
You also can't help but notice that the audience members have been hyped to within an inch of their lives with constant pointless cheering, and even pantomime booing of one contestant. In fact, I rather detected either some terrible sound mixing, or more likely, some artificially added applause at various junctures - it's hard to explain in words, but through the surround speakers, bits of applause simply didn't match up. In any case, they audience was too "big." On The Price is Right, you could understand the feverish behaviour - any audience member could potentially be picked as a contestant. Not so here.
We also get spurious video diaries of some of the contestants, and much of the banter has a scripted feel to it.
All in all, a disappointing effort. The questions aren't even that hard.