When the first series of W1A (BBC2) came out in 2014 I hadn't long been working as a TV critic and, in my more modest moments, I might even admit I was sometimes quite nervous and unsure of myself.
As my very first column said, I hadn't owned a TV for years and the only programme I watched was Breaking Bad, viewed on the laptop with a Netflix subscription. I was in happy ignorance of everything else except The Apprentice and Newsnight, the former because my sister made me watch it with her and the latter due to a schoolgirl crush on Paxman which has never quite faded…
So when W1A came out, and everyone fell over themselves to praise it, I was quietly baffled because it bored me, and my review said so. But then I blushed: maybe I'd got it wrong. After all, I'd only been a TV critic for five minutes and, ten minutes before that, I didn't even own a TV. I must have missed something. I've failed to understand something. Everyone adores it but me, therefore I must be wrong.
A year has passed since Series 1 and a year since my little wobbles of insecurity. Tonight, Series 2 launched and I can say, now being a hardened TV critic who watches a ludicrous amount of telly each week, that my opinion has not changed. I was justified in my frightened little review one year ago and I'm saying it again this year: W1A is tedious.
For those new to it, it's a mock documentary set within the BBC, supposedly poking fun at all the daft management speak, futile meetings and overpaid, superfluous people who flock and gibber behind its glassy walls.
I find it boring and irritating. There is repetition in the show to a maddening extent, an extent which takes it far beyond COMEDY out into the reaches of MILDLY AMUSING, and then well past the city limits out into AWKWARDNESS, finally grinding to a halt at TEDIUM. One woman repeatedly tells a security guard to 'shut up' whilst another constantly precedes her sarcasms with 'I'm not being funny, but…' and then there's a tooth-grinding scene with morons playing table tennis for about three hours - or so it seemed. I know we're supposed to shake our heads at them being morons, but there must be subtler or funnier ways to convey this than through a lengthy table tennis game punctuated with idiotic ideas on how to make their Wimbledon coverage less 'white'.
But it's not all bad. In the midst of the chaos is the polite Head of Values, played by Hugh Bonneville, whose bewildered facial expressions are a delight. The narration by David Tennant also drew a few half-hearted chuckles from me, and the panicky bleeping out of Jeremy Clarkson's name was a nice touch, but this isn't enough to justify all the hype and Twitter exclamation marks this show produces.
With the old, creaking BBC deigning to make fun of itself, W1A reminds me of the last day of the school term when the teachers might loosen their ties, relax and crack some jokes. They might even perch on the desk, rub their hands together and ask the class what we're getting up to over the summer. Whilst it was nice to see teachers being friendly, it was also uncomfortable as it was such a false attempt to be folksy. Straighten your tie, sir, we wanted to say, and sit down. You're too old to be swinging your legs from the desk. You're too dull for the holiday banter. Stop acting like we're pals.
I always remember one old, sour Geography teacher, on the last day before the Christmas break, asking us, 'So then troops, who'll be gettin' a Sega Mega?' Everyone just looked down at their jotters, at their nibbled plastic rulers, at their pink and yellow rubbers and at sharpeners shaped like ladybirds. Anything to avoid meeting the frantically friendly face of the old teacher who was beseeching, 'Like me! For this limited period, like me! I'm young! I get references to things!' I have that same feeling of dismal embarrassment watching W1A but without the joy of novelty stationery to distract me.
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