Salt of the Earth

Last Monday I thought I was going to watch a BBC3 pilot, so you can imagine my shock when I was subjected to a Shameless episode. Mrs Inbetweeny was written by one of Paul Abbots Abbotettes and it really shows. If Caleb Ranson is trying to emulate his mentor it's kind of cute, pathetic but cute. I think it's far more likely that Paul Abbot beat what little originality there was in the script and added all the phnah phnah, carry on, lowesest common denominator bullshit that dominates Shameless. The music sounds exactly the same as Clocking Off and Shameless which is a huge mistake as it sounded dated in Clocking Off. It's shot in the same way as Shameless and is full of that "people in the north are salt of the earth, poor but happy blah blah fucking blah" bollocks a that makes all northern dramas really shit and unrealistic. If Paul Abbot had any interest in helping new writers he'd let them write their own thing, not push them into writing a crap version of Shameless (which is also dire).
So three pilots in and two were shit and one was good. Being Human was original and showed a lot of promise, it also lacked the tedious sexual slapstick prevalent in mainstream british telly. Phoo Action, in an attempt to be "down with the kids", succeeded only in making a CBBC program with worse writing and the occasional swear word.The colours clashed in such a sickening way I'm sure I've developed some sort of retinal cancer. It's disgusting that Danny Cohen greenlit this awful program before it even aired, showing his disregard for what the viewers want and I'm sure pissing off the production companies responsible for the other five pilots. I'm convinced the only reason he greenlit Phoo Action is because it looks suitably "yoof" when it's plain to see it's just childish.