Lost Humanity 11: Games TV, Again
I used to present a BBC show about video games. There were three series in total, with the last series this ridiculous sprawling thing with two TV specials and about 18 online episodes. It was hard work, often fun work, and barely anybody watched any of it. We existed in a time before the iPlayer, and the show went out on BBC Scotland in a late night slot. We were commissioned by a guy at BBC Scotland called Ewan Angus, and I remember his sole pointer being “I don’t want to understand a word of it.” There are very few heroes on the broadcast side of television, but Ewan Angus is often one of them. It was a brave commission, and I haven’t seen anything like it since.I can hardly believe the show existed. In one episode we had Colin Baker in character as Doctor Who, talking about Chuckie Egg, in an appearance that we considered Doctor Who canon. In another episode we had Charlie Brooker reviewing terrible games that myself and my co-host Ryan Macleod had made. In another we had Jonathan Coulton performing an acoustic version of “Still Alive” from Portal, having just been introduced by the legendary, sadly missed Frank Sidebottom. We had Dominik Diamond too, The King, spitting into a Children in Need bucket and being hauled about on a moving platform. We had Tim & Eric, from Awesome Show Great Job, as our American correspondents. It was a surreal, amazing experience, made possible by a ballsy TV commissioner who gave us something close to carte blanche. The show wasn’t perfect by any means, but every mistake and misfire was ours.It’s now more than four years since the show ended, and I’ve been waiting for something else to come along. The situation right now, with iPlayer on every games console, is ideal. A TV show about games, even in a horrible slot somewhere in the arse end of the BBC schedules, would be pushed directly to the target audience on iPlayer. Turn off your game, take a break, turn on the iPlayer, watch the show. And so easy to promote, too. With Twitter and Facebook and so on, the members of that demographic would be reminding each other of the show’s existence. Perfect! So, the show has to be coming, right? Something must be coming.Read more…
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