ASHLEY Pharoah and Matthew Graham, the writers of Life On Mars, are fond of making up reviews before their shows have aired. Apparently they correctly predicted we wouldn't like the second series quite as much as the first, and the sequel Ashes To As
hes even less. If they're that smart, I'm tempted to give Bonekicker a miss, but the first episode did raise some important questions, such as: was that really Tory poster-boy George Osborne demanding a new holy war, sword-fighting on a trapeze and then dying in a fireball beneath what may or may not have been the Cross of Jesus?
Not quite. Not at all, in fact. But from a certain angle Paul Rhys as Edward Laygass, the bonkers leader of the White Wings Alliance, did look like the shadow chancellor. From a certain angle, Bonekickers looked like Spooks. From another, Waking The Dead. I mention these shows because everyone else has been mentioning the similarities with Time Team and CSI, also The Da Vinci Code, and I don't want Pharoah and Graham to think we goggle-box critics have been comparing notes or anything.
The Bonekickers are archaeologists. They're the usual young, good-looking, multi-racial mix in skinny-cut clothing, just like Spooks and Waking The Dead. Which of these long-runners came up with the template to which all new ensemble dramas must adhere? I can't remember – it seems ages since virtually all of TV didn't look like this.
The show also appears to have borrowed its lab from Waking The Dead. In the middle there's a big circular table where the team gathers and someone will blurt: "Let's do dentrochronology!" The non-technical pronouncements are supposed to induce even greater gasps. "There's always something down there!" and "This is re-writing-the-books stuff!" had me thinking that, rather than trying to second-guess the reviews, Pharoah and Graham should have spent more time on their script. But then Julie Graham as Prof Gillian Magwilde crouched down at a dig, stared at the earth and whispered: "Come on ... give up your secrets."
There is one member of the team, however, who flouts convention. Prof Gregory Parton (Huge Bonneville) has never been a 32-inch waist – not even if you go all the way back to the neolithic age – and this unkempt, un-PC lump of a man doesn't seem to fit into any focus-group concept of how a show about history and facts and stuff will appeal to the ever-elusive youth demographic. In other words, he looks exactly like how the rest of us expect, and want, archaeologists to look.
"Dolly" Parton gets what good lines there are, even though some seem to have been dredged up from the age before neolithic. It's a long time since a contemporary drama has given us a male character who sums up a young woman's professional abilities thus: "Nice smile – inspirational chest." The team's rookie let this pass unchallenged and 10 minutes later Parton was at it again: "Young lady with the proceleusmatic bosom!" I didn't know this word – proceleusmatic, that is – and had to look it up (it means "inciting"). Isn't that the mark of great TV, that it teaches you something? Yes, but Bonekickers is bilge.
Superstars, on the other hand, is brilliant. Or at least it was. A 1970s summer-time classic of long hair, skimpy shorts, municipal red-blaes endeavour and Ron Pickering – Mr Athletics – bestowing credibility on the idea of sportsmen swapping disciplines, which at the time seemed pretty far out. Nowadays, of course, all sportsmen are light-entertainment personalities.
But within a few minutes of Five's revival, I was doubting my own memory. Yes, the new Superstars, such as Sir Steven Redgrave and Dame Kelly Holmes, loved the original, too – but all they could remember was Kevin Keegan falling off his push-bike and Brian Jacks combusting during the bar dips. This was the sum total of my recall as well.
The modern sportsman is very aware of his lactic acid levels. I doubt very much that Malcolm Macdonald was bothered by such trifles and ... hang on, he was in the show first-time round: nifty with a gun, too. I didn't think I was going to enjoy this "fresh approach" but thankfully the "state-of-the-art" stadium retained a smelly-holdall ambience and there was a neat twist with four captains choosing teams and, at long last, a professional experiencing the ignominy of being last to be picked for games. At least I'd heard of Lee Sharpe – he was in Celebrity Love Island. (Strictly speaking, he's an ex-footballer – Sports Ed). I have to confess I didn't know the female boxer, or the female bobsleigher. But if they count as Superstars these days, what does that make Tommie Smith and John Carlos?
Black Power Salute was a cracking documentary about the sprinters whose gloved protest at the 1968 Mexico Olympics got them sent home by racist, Hitler-consorting Games administrators. White America's reaction was even more hostile: they were spat at in the street, suffered death threats and family pets were killed.
Among fascinating archive footage – which also included a pullovered Frank Bough reporting the ban to a breakfasting Britain and Smith, a forgotten hero in his homeland, struggling to make it as a coach in Wakefield, Yorkshire – there was David Coleman suggesting to the pair that they should have been happy with their medals. "I can't eat medals, and the kids round the block can't eat publicity," said Carlos, who was angered that America could send blacks to fight in Vietnam while there was still segregation in Alabama and Mississippi. "We're five rungs down the ladder. All we want is equality – as human beings."
In Alesha: Look But Don't Touch (BBC3, Monday, 9pm), which examined how magazine airbrushing of celebrities twists perceptions of beauty and causes an upsurge in boob jobs and bulimia, Alesha Dixon got good answers out of everyone from Cheryl Cole to seven-year-old schoolgirls. A career in documentaries could be hers, if she ever wants to give up being a long-legged national treasure with proceleusmatic eyes.
The full article contains 1054 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
