The BBC Press Office says of Burn Up, its latest drama, made in conjunction with a Canadian company and featuring attractive Canadian locations*, that it is “a highly authored piece wholly of this unique moment in time.”
Don’t ask me.
Anyway, AA Gill of the Times says:
This gem of the scriptwriter’s craft was brought to us courtesy of Burn Up (Wednesday/Friday, BBC2), the hugely expensive and very Canadian and cavernously vacuous thriller about Kyoto and global warming that starred Adam from Spooks and Josh from The West Wing. Watching it was a bit like being manacled to the table at a Notting Hill dinner party, or being lectured by a vegan vitamin salesman.
The finger-wagging about global warming was relentless and unabating, all couched in the comfy velour of the edge-of-history and watershed gibberish. The goodies were witty, brilliant, sensitive, imaginative, attractive, sexy and great dancers – rather, I suspect, like the scriptwriters. The baddies were, well,they were all American. This was film-making from the Soviet school of political subtlety, a childishly black-and-white premise, delivered with a patronising blog of a script, which overwhelmed the plot, pace, anything resembling a character and, finally, the audience’s sympathy.
And Kevin O’Sullivan of the Mirror says:
The end of the world is nigh. Americans are baddies . The oil business is terribly awful. Invest in windmills… before it’s TOO LATE.
Preaching the kind of dreary ecoorthodoxy that soppy actors just love, BBC2’s lukewarm Burn Up was stupefying.
I was a little worried that the BBC might forget to insert the evil Christians into the first episode as made de rigeur by the first episodes of Spooks and Bonekickers. But Mike McNally was able to reassure me:
Battling Holly for Tom’s soul is oil lobbyist Mack, played by The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford. Mack is essentially JR Ewing without the good points, and in case the viewer should be in any doubt as to the extent of his moral bankruptcy, in one of Burn Up’s many gratuitously America-bashing scenes Mack is shown watching a faith healer at work on cable TV, and exclaiming, with tears in his eyes, “Praise the Lord!” It’s not bad enough that he’s a shill for the oil industry — he’s a Bible-bashing shill for the oil industry.
*I want to be positive where I can.
I thought this weeks bone kickers was less overtly anti British. But they did get some digs in.
Middle Eastern/Arab/ Muslim ruins are majestic stonehenge is just rubble.
The sword the woman is working towards is going to be excaliber (its always excalaber or the holy grail)
Even that had to be Iraqi and not English. I am assuming the ww1 tank in the next episode is a referance to the new excaliber.
They are proposing that it is made out of meterioric iron. which is just copying the Achillies mythwhich being greek is probably too western for the BBC.
I was a little worried that the BBC might forget to insert the evil Christians into the first episode as made de rigeur by the first episodes of Spooks and Bonekickers
Ha ha. Good old aunty. Consistent to the end.
Tele-evangelist. Praise the Lord!!
Liberals and lefties. They’re just so damned nuanced.
I wonder what this BBC drama is like:
(BBC 2 TV tonight 9 pm UK time – and BBC i-Player for 7 days)
“The House of Saddam” (4 parts of one hour each).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?filename=20080730/20080730_2100_4224_16509_60
George .. “The House of Saddam” (4 parts of one hour each).
Is that one of those endless property shows the BBC produces by the bucket full?
Tonight a couple from Bognor relocates to Iraq and we pick four Saddam palaces within their budget?
Which one will they choose?
Jack Bauer:
Hopefully not; it sounds like a poor man’s House of Saud.
Burn-up really was astonishing in its demented left-wing nuttiness.
During “Kyoto II” there was a standing ovation for the Chinese delegation while the Amerikkkan who stood before the same audience was jeered for mentioning nuclear energy! It was very noticeable that this was the only time nuclear was mentioned during the entire 3 hours.
“It’s not bad enough that he’s a shill for the oil industry – he’s a Bible-bashing shill for the oil industry.”
Shortchanging Bradley Whitford’s character there. He was a bible-bashing, oil industry shill who also organised black sites for rendition!
Re House of Saddam – the BBC radio Times reviewer sees saddam as hero
And as in the Godfather trilogy, we have the strange experience of rooting for the heroes of the tale, though we know they are bloodcurdling monsters. We see how Saddam’s paranoia played itself out and what his megalomania meant in practice – appropriating another man’s wife, ordering the execution of his best generals – but we also see a charismatic moderniser with a dream of making Iraq great,
Ensconced as I am presently in the arms of the evil oil loving Americans I just can’t wait to escape into the warn embrace of Nulabour and the nanny state…oh how I miss the beeb helping me see the evil in the world.
Re: Nosepickers and Burn Up. I actually think this is sort of veggie/gay left porn.
I reckon they sit at home knocking one out watching this shit.
Well for my sins I watched the awful bonekickers last night and the moral seemed to be something around the nutty, ugly, brother being pro-West and the lothario “good guy” being pro-Iraq.
Didn’t those snakes look real?
The frightening thing about these propaganda films is that the BBC thinks its portraying reality, the BBC actually believe the things you see on the screen! The BBC collective are seeing things not as they are but the way they wish to see them so they conform to their political prejudices, almost as if they are viewing reality through a distorting lense? The BBC have become victim to a groupthink collective mental illness coupled with a kind of mass self delusion!
Its even more scary to think that the BBC is not being called to account for its behaviour!
It was a bit like flicking between a global warming lecture and a film student’s first attempt at writing a thriller. Why does a subplot always have to contain sex? Why do the bad guys have to be so polorised? How does a man whose lifelong ambition has been to run an oil company change his mind so quickly? In fact, why didn’t he do his research sooner? Can’t the writers think of something, I dunno, non-cliched? Or were they too busy writing the lecture?
I’m not convinced that climate change is all bullshit, but programmes like this just expose those areas of society whose minds are already made up.
And Bonekickers?!? I thought the criticism on this site would be aimed squarely at the utter waste of money this show is. If the Beeb can pay Wossy “the going rate” for presenting his various programmes, why can’t they pay for the “best” writers? Or are the “best” writers also writers who don’t automatically fall into convenient groups? Perhaps the “best” writers refuse to work with such politically-correct directives?
Anyone know any drama writers who refuse work from the Beeb?
Did it mention that Canada’s emissions have increased by 2% more than those of the US since Kyoto?
No one suggests ‘climate change’ is bullshit. Climate change is very real.
However, unlike the BBC wanker with a degree in English (the BBC’s Environment analyst) there is severe doubt as to how much effect human activity has and what the relationship bewteen the rate of climate change and CO2 levels.
I’d suggest people who have a degree in English stick to what they know about, that being Shakespeare not the physics of climate change.
Would Harrabin get a job teaching O’Level Physics in a school? Yet this prick spouts utter wank on a daily basis on the BBC.
“No one suggests ‘climate change’ is bullshit.”
I do.
‘dangerous climate change’
thanx
So far as I can see the House of Saddam seems to provide the ultimate justification for the Iraq war. Those liberals who think it would have been better to leave Saddam in place ought to be having second thoughts by now. This is a BBC/HBO co-production. This far it’s more like a Fox News production.
The supposed “facts” in this film even conflict with what the climate scientists at the Hadley Centre say.
Snag: Don’t mix global warming with climate change. Climate change is natural. The climate has always changed and always will.
‘dangerous climate change’ is bollocks and made up by a halfwit who’se father is a raving loony.
I thought “Burn Up” was hilarious pantomine. Every time an American or oilworker appeared on the screen i wanted to boo and then cheer when those nice enviromentalists and inuits came on. In fact this would be a great prog at Xmas/New Year. The BBC could provide subtitles in case we wernt sure who the baddies were. Boo now etc.,
Whats really scary is that the Beeb launched this as a serious drama that was right up to date with all the so called evidence about Global Warming so that it would stimulate a debate.
It was in reality a one-sided piece of second rate crap. But dont be surprised if the luvvies award it a couple of BAFTAS.
Incidentally that nice English head of the oil company Tom, What did he do? I never saw him doing a scrap of work or in his office or the boardroom.
He just looked increasingly vacant as he came to realise what a terrible company he worked for, and how he could help save the world. The poor lamb!
Thumbs up for the first episode of Saddam. Our collective memory has metamorphosed that regime into the unjustifiable victim of Bush and Blair’s pointless illegal oil war. This dramatisation was a timely reminder of forgotten horrors. There was a real sense of how brutal and ‘other’ things were and indeed still are in these countries. It seems the old hag had a lot to answer for, too.
It was the first time for ages that our household has been impressed with something on the telly. Hope it stays good for the next three episodes..
BBC/HBO production of ‘House of Saddam’:
“‘Godfather’ meets Macbeth in Saddam Hussein drama”
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL8614528.html
More reviews of BBC/HBO ‘House of Saddam’:
– Serena Davies (‘Telegraph’) gives it a rave review:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/31/nosplit/bvtv31last.xml
-Thomas Sutcliffe (‘Independent’) wanted more CIA:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-house-of-saddam-bbc2br-dangerous-jobs-for-girl-channel-4-881290.html
I think the greenies may have shot themsleves in the foot with Burn Up.
The most persuasive arguments were those put by the ‘villain’ Mack.
In particular he warned how many more third world people would be killed by a slowdown in the global economy than by climate change.
The greenies didn’t listen and the show ended with voice overs of collapsing stock markets.
in the current….er…’climate’… that’s a powerful lesson for our times.
glad i dont watch any of the shite on Al Beeb, and i recommend u all use your tv’s for dvd’s and saving the planet from aliens via your xbox/PS
but all the telly tax payers were warned by Al Beeb, that if they didnt get the licence fee increase that they wanted, program quality would drop
bonepickers and burn up are examples of poor quality programming
how about Al Beb commission a new drama, “Beeboids” about a load of looney lefties working for the state broadcaster and centering around how to brainwash the viewers
Turning for a moment from fiction as propaganda, last week (23 July – sorry for the delay) at the same time “Burn Out” was being screened, the BBC was injecting its own particular brand of poisonous fiction into the atmosphere via “The Thirties in Colour” on BBC4. Here was a treasure trove of colour movies made by two rich Americans (the Wright brothers – no relation) just before WW2. The major film dealt with was a world cruise. There were clips from a number of the Wrights’ films but it was sometimes unclear which clip belonged to which film and the dating of the clips was sometimes random. In any event the Wrights’ facinating stuff took up about 10-15 minutes of the programme’s hour. The rest was taken up with an eclectic collection of well-worn newsreel of Hitler, Mussolini, the British in Palestine (pre- or post-WW2 – the clips could have been either), the Spanish Civil War, the American Depression etc etc. Unsurprisingly, the BBC took the opportunity to use the Wrights’ movies to launch an uncontolled anti-colonialist rant which included the obligatory Palestinians-as-victims coda.
The BBC assembled the usual crew of fifth rate academics to point out the victimisation of all the oppressed peoples in the lands visited by the Wrights eg the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Marquesas, South Africa. An unusually egregious example was having the South African clips commented on by Shula Marks, Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at SOAS. Professor Marks patronises for England. She is the very ideal of the liberal South African emigrée who pollutes Britain’s intellectual life and (unaccountably) hasn’t yet re-settled in the paradise on earth ruled by the ANC. She treated us to a selection of der Sturmer-like cartoons of Rhodes and even had the gall to tell us that the Zulus won the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. (In the real world they lost but, in losing, gave the British an extremely bloody nose.)
Another academic (whose name I didn’t catch) informed us indignantly – against movie clips of the British having a difficult time controlling mobs in Palestine (no dates, no places) – that, effectively, Palestine was an economic and political basket case pre-WW2 and that the Jews and British formed an unholy alliance to seize Palestine from the Arabs. I would have thought that it is relatively uncontentious fact that, pre-Israel, every acre of land transferred to Jews by the Arabs was paid for in hard cash and that the British authorities were caught unwillingly in the middle.
The programme ended with the Wrights’ films of both the New York and San Francisco world fairs being compared: NY, supported (paid for?) by big business (boo!!) and SF being the wonderful result of a New Deal make-work project (hooray!!) which was latterly taken over by the US Navy (boo!!) to fight the Japanese.
In all a tendentious, biased and uninformed waste of licence-payers’ money which, I assume, was repeated last night (on doctor’s advice I didn’t watch). Compare this to the relatively neutral presentation of the Kahn archives which were (more or less) allowed to speak for themselves. I will not be making a complaint to the BBC (why complain to the organ grinder about the monkey?): maybe Ofcom will be more interested.
George R:
More reviews of BBC/HBO ‘House of Saddam’:
Of course, the title really should have been
THE HOUSE OF HUSSEIN
I mean, you wouldn’t do a show on Anwar Sadat and call it the House of Anwar, would you?
But I guess for some reason the surname Hussein is now politically incorrect.
What’s equally distrubing about the Burn Up programme is the vomit-inducing hype produced by the BBC press office (link provided by Natalie in the main piece). I worked there in the 1980s and then it had the most left-wing NUJ chapel in the BBC.
Its traditions continue. At least when I worked there, we tried to put both sides of complex issues. Now the good boys and girls who do ‘meejah relations’ have become arbiters/adjudicators/experts on the massively complex subject of global warming and inform us that Burn Up represents the reality. Why? Because the writer, Simon Beaufoy, he who wrote the Full Monty, has taken the trouble to read a few newspaper cuttings so that he is ‘fully informed’.
It’s terrifying how an ill-informed, self-appointed, totally cushioned, liberal-left elite are making up such utter tosh and then having the effrontery to tell us that it is ‘real’.
Simon Beaufoy
I want to slap the silly bugger based on his name alone.
re thirties in colour. One example is, in the pacific we were told about a British govenor who forced natives to wear traditional dress. The fifth rate academics as you call them told us this was racism.
Then a little late in S.Africa we were told local people had to cover up before they were allowed to come into town, we were this too was racism.
So you cant win if you are a colonialist.
I saw the Thirties in Colour too. It was the most extraordinary production with some of the dodgiest and most stupid “academics” wheeled on to make outrageous assertions about the footage (speculating about the “feelings” of “housboys” in silent footage of an innocuous flower market in Durban) pushing egregious examples of the leftist world-view of some 1970’s provincial polytechnic Sociology Department. If I were the relatives of the original filmmakers I would be making serious complaints about the way in which they were traduced without any attempt to give a balanced view.
On the plus-side Shitkickers has turned into an epic disaster. The BBC website and “fansite” contain almost nothing but the venting of venemous (often hilarious) spleen.
They have with BurnUp and Shitkickers really overdone it and provoked a general wave of ridicule and contempt which will be hard to ignore.
re: House of Hussein
As a rule:
Drama is NEVER accurate history.
Drama ALWAYS has a personal point of view.
The question always is “whose point of view”?
Ok I have to admit something. I am really enjoying Bonekickers. Yes it is rubbish and is going through the tickbox of lefty baddies, but I don’t care. I am settling nicely into loathing the character played by Julie Graham and liking the rest.
It is an effort turning off my lefty alarm sensors but worth it for a bit of fun.
Once you approach Shitkickers as hilarious Beeboid comedy it is strangely satisfying. By the end you just know the shitty organisation will eventually lose all public support and the tv tax will have to be withdrawn.
But how can they achieve SUCH an abysmal show? Can you imagine the level of smug self-congratulation that enables such shite to get through the commissioning and production process??
Canon:
The BBC don’t own the ‘Fudgepackers’ …sorry ‘Bonekickers’ website. Granada – who co-produced the show – in their infinite stupidity registered bonekickers.com and left bonekickers.co.uk to be snapped up by an opportunist. Hence why it’s full of paid ads on the right hand side.
Whoever is running it is just trying to make a buck off this tragic show and milking Al Beeb for all they are not worth.
Good luck to him I say.
Oh yes and that reminds me of the most frabjous bit of dumbed-down academia on Thirties in Colour.
Some “anthropologist” lamenting, quite literally tearfully, as cultural genocide the assimilation of a singularly vicious sounding tribe of murderous predatory headhunters, and the loss of their unique and beautiful culture. Rather like a historian decrying de-nazification because of the extirpation of the lovely outfits and the muscular cameraderie.
This uniquely “academic” savagery was uncritically presented as yet another outrageous illustration of western imperialism, in a programme remarkable for its spiteful anti-americanism, without the bat of an eyelid.
Still – Shitkickers and Burntout are a climateric of sorts: will they dare broadcast Team Leader Arthur and the Heads of the Diversity Round Table with its rumoured black Guinevere, bisexual Sir Lancelot and muslim al-merlin?
The proof of the pudding will come in the ratings. We, the licence-fee payers, should demand an audit on the pounds per eyeballs of propaganda efforts such as Boxtickers and Burn Up. My guess (and it is a guess, because I think I’d have to be chained down to get me to watch either of these) is that the audience will, by the end of these series, be vanishingly small, and thus the cost per viewer eye-wateringly vast.
And that’s a point and angle of attack which might do some damage to the collective.