Monday, 28 February 2011

Task 1- Research

Misfits
  • The show went out on Thursday 11th November 2010 on Channel 4's digital offshoot E4, garnered impressive figures with 1.1 million viewers watching the broadcast at 9pm, giving it the biggest audience on the niche channel this month.
  • Petra Fried (producer) claims that Misfits is not guilty of glamorising violence. On the contrary, she believes that, in playing with the pariah status of these teenagers by giving them superhuman powers, Overman's writing has made room for the idea that these asbo kids are no more or less unusual than any other confused and contradictory adolescent, although they may have fewer advantages.
  • British reviews have been very positive. The Times gave it four out of five stars, calling it "a new union — salty British street humour with whizz-bang special effects" which should "keep E4's core audience happy".
  • An online review by The Guardian said that it was "confident enough to operate in its own universe and set up something new" and that it was aimed at showing us "real people" rather than the stereotype of the "ASBO teenager".
  • The Daily Telegraph drew special attention to Howard Overman's script which, it said, "sparkled from the off, introducing his posse of social outcasts as a bunch of total losers, but each one distinctively and memorably so."
Awards:
  • The series won the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series.
  • Both the series and its writer Howard Overman were nominated for RTS Awards in March 2010.
Skins
  • Premiered on E4 on 25 January 2007.
  • The show was created by father and son television writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain for Company Pictures.
  • The first series received positive reviews, although some critics complained that the series depicts teenagers unrealistically and stereotypically.
  • Others criticised the excessive promotion of the show (specifically in the UK) and having relatively mediocre writing in comparison to other similarly themed shows. Actor Nicholas Hoult defended the extreme storylines, saying they would not reflect "everyone's teenage life", adding "it is maybe heightened for entertainment but all of it is believable."
  • The pilot episode of Skins averaged 1.5 million viewers. The series finale attracted an audience of 740,000 on E4, equating to a 4.65% share of the audience. Series 4 premiered with 1.5 million viewers across E4 and E4+1, the highest rated episode since series 1.
  • "I hope it will feel as authentic because it's genuinely inspired by, driven by, and directed by young people," says the head of E4, Danny Cohen
  • Skins follows the lives of nine teenagers from the same Bristol sixth-form college. Each hour-long episode is devoted to a different character. All the cinematic tropes of high school are here: pretty boys and girls, geeks, sidekicks and outcasts.
  • It believes 17-year-old viewers will be more interested in seeing their own age group reflected on screen (arguably it is thirtysomething Fast Show fans who will relish Enfield playing a porky, middle-aged dad), plus the drama is filmed from a teen perspective. The adults only appear on the periphery of their children's lives - which feels pretty true to life
  • "We're not attempting to help or instruct anyone," says Elsley. "What we're trying to do is write a show about relationships. It's not about whether or not you should have sex, or whether or not you should take drugs." - Bryan Elsey
Awards:


C4's most important decision was to push programming which is distinctively British. Part of the thinking behind commissioning Skins and Misfits was that the teenage audience had been badly under-served until then with homegrown drama, providing little to watch apart from glossy soap Hollyoaks, also on C4.


The Inbetweeners



  • The Inbetweeners is a British sitcom which aired for three series from 2008 on E4. Written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, the show follows the life of suburban teenager Will (Simon Bird), and three of his friends at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive.
  • The first series began on 1 May 2008, with the pilot episode garnering 238,000 viewers.The series averaged 459,000 viewers.
  • Joe McNally, writing for The Independent, commends an "exquisitely accurate dialogue, capturing the feel of adolescence perfectly"
  • "It's puerile, base, crude and entirely lacking in sophistication, The Inbetweeners is all those things but there is more to it than that. Sure, it's got that gross-out, cringey element that ensures people will talk about it around the kettle (the British equivalent of the water-cooler), but there are also moments of pathos, fully drawn minor characters (Greg Davies's Mr Gilbert is to the show what Sue Sylvester is to Glee) and even the odd underplayed insightful observation about society both inside and outside school walls (for all their sexist chatter, while the boys spend their lives desperately striving to be "cool", the girls, who couldn't care less about such things, innately are)." - the independent
  • "It is funny because you will have met blokes with elements of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil; lovable losers who use bravado and jokes to disguise the inner turmoil they are ill-equipped to deal with." - the independent.  It therefore reaches a wide variety of ages.

Awards: 
  • Nominated for 'Best Situation Comedy' at BAFTA twice, in 2009 and 2010. 
  • British Academy Television Awards 2010, it won the Audience Award, the only award voted for by viewers 
  • In 2011 the show won the Best Sitcom award at the British Comedy Awards
Posted by Lily Jones at 04:36
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