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December 19, 2007

Irish TV moments of 2007

Filed under: TV — Shane @ 1:49 pm

- The Late Late Show gave us McSavage . Have I ever mentioned that before?

- It also gave us the interview with Frances Cahill, which was reminder of just how good it can be. Once every several thousand episodes.

- Vincent Browne’s verbal assault on Bertie was something to behold.

- The fight on Ireland AM was grubby but gripping.

- There was Vincent Browne presenting Ireland AM. Genius, of sorts. But it’s not on YouTube, so we only have the memories. Such sweet, confusing memories.

- The Clinic had the most outrageously brutal ending in the history of Irish drama, in which several disasters befell Dr-Whatever-Her-Name-Is in the space of mere minutes. If you missed it, it was a bit like this.

- But winner this (and, let’s face it, every) year was The Late Late Toy Show, which gave us the sight of Pat Kenny kicking a doll, Santa handing him nuclear waste, a child-goth singing opera, and Kenny getting Seinfeld’s name wrong. Twice.

Again, it’s not on YouTube, but we replay it in our heads every day.

20 Comments »

  • 1

    You forgot to mention the Toy Show giving us the sight of Pat Kenny singing ‘The Locomotion’… or did you try to wipe that from your mind too?

    Comment by Adam | December 19, 2007 at 2:15 pm
  • 2

    Pat Kenny doesn’t wear Christmas sweaters; that’s the nervous rash kids give him.

    Comment by Green Ink | December 19, 2007 at 3:03 pm
  • 3

    What about when Brendan O’Connor was ‘interviewed’ on Tubridy about his being on the You’re a Star panel and basically called his fellow judges a bunch of chavs?

    Comment by 73man | December 19, 2007 at 3:22 pm
  • 4

    Adam - I must have turned over at that moment, because that memory hasn’t woken me up in a cold sweat.

    Green Ink - I like when he gets competitive with the kids. It’s an important element.

    73man - I like the way you say “interviewed”. SUch condescension. Wasn’t O’Connor also on Saturday Night with Miriam when she sang?

    Comment by Shane | December 19, 2007 at 3:33 pm
  • 5

    Shane, big penny dropped there. He IS competing with them. How insecure about your presenting skills do you have to be to do that?

    Ah. Yes.

    I will return with my most cringeworthy memory of the Pat on the Late. It was awful but takes a bit of telling.

    Comment by Green Ink | December 19, 2007 at 4:00 pm
  • 6

    Many thanks for watching all The Late Lates so I didn’t have to. It’s not a job for the faint hearted Shane.. you are a prince among men. Or just mad.

    Comment by Liz | December 19, 2007 at 4:13 pm
  • 7

    Conor: I am not sure. I went outside to bang my head against the pebbledash.

    Comment by 73man | December 19, 2007 at 5:12 pm
  • 8

    The Horror that is Pat Kenny.

    Comment by Green Ink | December 19, 2007 at 5:36 pm
  • 9

    Check the papers first to see who is in town. then avoid the Late Late or you will see Pat try to interview them

    Comment by Helen | December 20, 2007 at 6:53 am
  • 10

    that ending to the clinic brought rte drama to a new level. i assume it wasn’t meant to make us laugh at how ridiculous it was..

    Comment by MikeB | December 20, 2007 at 10:56 am
  • 11

    Liz - The thing is, I would miss it if it was gone. I think.

    Green Ink - I remember when he sat on Scary Spice’s knee, and then said something along the lines of: “So, you do some work for a domestic violence charity.”

    Helen - Or you can watch them on Jonathon Ross instead.

    MikeB - It was ridiulous, although that is a trait of medical dramas. A helicopter fell on Dr Romano in ER a few years ago.

    Comment by Shane | December 20, 2007 at 11:03 am
  • 12

    Hey Shane, take the year off. You’ve seen enough.

    Comment by Green Ink | December 20, 2007 at 11:23 am
  • 13

    I think Romano walked in the tail rotor rather than have it fall on him.

    Comment by Dan Sullivan | December 20, 2007 at 11:36 am
  • 14

    Dan - I think I’m right in saying that, first, he lost his arm to a coptor’s rotor blade and then, several episodes later, was killed by a chopper that fell off a roof. Those helicopters really had it in for him.

    Comment by Shane | December 20, 2007 at 11:39 am
  • 15

    He then went onto lead the Conservative Party before becoming a surprisingly entertaining host of Have I Got News for You.

    Comment by Brock Landers | December 20, 2007 at 11:59 am
  • 16

    My bad, I was prompted to read up on the character’s history and yep the whirly birds got him in a pavement pizza in the end.

    Comment by Dan Sullivan | December 20, 2007 at 12:00 pm
  • 17

    “I think I’m right in saying that, first, he lost his arm to a coptor’s rotor blade and then, several episodes later, was killed by a chopper that fell off a roof. Those helicopters really had it in for him.”

    That storyline in ER always really confused me. Why did they make it a chopper that killed him after already being maimed by one? It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s not as if there’s any irony or message in it. I just never got it. Why couldn’t they have him screw up his arm in a chopper blade and then a while later fall down an elevator shaft, or get attacked by a lion, or murdered or something. WHY WITH THE HELICOPTERS? ALWAYS WITH THE HELICOPTERS.

    je don’t understand pas.

    Comment by UnaRocks | December 20, 2007 at 1:38 pm
  • 18

    Una- Have you ever seen Final Destination? A similar theme was probably working in ER.

    Comment by Brock Landers | December 20, 2007 at 2:25 pm
  • 19

    Una - It was crazy, and a little like that subplot in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in which the same creature reincarnates in various forms but always with the same aim of killing Arthur Dent.

    Any, because I’m self-indulgent, and to illustrate how mad this chopper-related twist was back then, here’s the TV review I wrote from that week:

    Having previously lost his arm to a helicopter, Dr Romano lost the rest of his body to one in last Sunday’s ER. The irony is that they may only be able to identify him from his prosthetic limb; suggesting that his surgeons’ initial error was to not give him a prosthetic body.

    Who, though, could have foretold that he would become the victim of a second helicopter accident in the same building in as many years? Of course, Dr Romano (Paul McCrane) had such a mean personality, was so thoroughly rotten to everyone who had ever tried to be nice to him, that he may have upset the karmic balance enough that it finally decided to find for him a particularly sarcastic death.

    Watching the helicopter pick up a patient from the hospital roof triggered a flashback to the night whirring blades severed his arm, so Romano had dashed downstairs to take a breath of air at the front entrance. He suddenly found himself caught in an unexpected drizzle of flaming debris and when he looked up it was to find the helicopter plummeting towards him. His scream as he realised his fate was one of horror, but it also carried the unmistakable lilt of ennui. His last thought, perhaps, was to wonder if he had been a surface-to-air missile in a previous life that he had so committed all helicopters to a vendetta against him in this.

    As is common to ER, the episode - in fact, the series so far - had been moseying along without too much to raise the blood pressure when it was suddenly startled by catastrophe. The staff of Chicago’s County General must really be beginning to wonder about a few things. Their hospital has been blown up, burned down, shot up, crashed into, demolished and blown up again, and was recently infected with a disease eradicated worldwide more than 20 years ago. That screaming you hear is patients begging to be brought somewhere else.

    Comment by Shane | December 20, 2007 at 2:29 pm
  • 20

    Shane the creature that is reincarnated is always killed by Arthur Dent not reincarnated with the intent of killing him. It eventually does want to kill him though.

    Comment by Dan Sullivan | December 21, 2007 at 12:59 am

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