LIKE listed buildings, some of our finest television shows should have had preservation orders to protect them.
Porridge is one, Minder’s another.
And both ended up being desecrated by remakes, with Kevin Bishop and Shane Richie, respectively.
So I shouldn’t really have been too surprised to discover U&Drama’s reruns of Bergerac, another blue plaque show, weren’t an act of nostalgic benevolence after all.
They were just buttering us up for last night’s reboot, which was probably sunk from the moment someone decided, instead of eight gloriously self-contained episodes, like the John Nettles classic, they would spread a single murder mystery over an entire series that had lost my interest and any sympathy for its horrible characters within the first 30 minutes.
Worse was to follow, though, when it became apparent no one on the production had properly appreciated the title of the show is a bit of a misnomer.
The real star of Bergerac was Charlie Hungerford, played by the great Terence Alexander, who was so central to the drama that, if you drew a Venn diagram of every imaginary crime committed in Jersey from 1981 to 1991, Jim’s ex-father-in-law would be sitting right in the middle wiggling a big cigar.
He was the Channel Islands’ Fonz, a character of such shifty but abundant charm only television people could be stupid and woke enough to decide that, in the new version, Charlie Hungerford must be a woman.
Because Charlie is now a woman, of course, she also cannot be seen to exhibit vanity, pomposity, greed, cowardice, lust or any of the other failings which made a nation fall in love with Terence’s master creation.
Instead, poor old Zoe Wannamaker just hangs around pruning roses, like she’s taken a wrong turn on the way to a Hetty Wainthropp reboot.
It’s a TV travesty of significant proportions, but not, as you’ve probably guessed, an isolated incident.
The criminals will almost certainly all turn out to be white blokes, but in every other respect the new Bergerac worships at the altar of diversity and equality, making a mockery of the fact Jersey is 96 per cent white and leaving me feeling they might as well have set the damn thing in Brighton or Bournemouth if they were really that unhappy with the setting’s ethnic mix.
Woke as it is, there is just the slightest chance it could still be rescued by a great lead.
But as for Jim Bergerac himself?
Well, in the original, he was a cynical but charismatic and buccaneering alpha male who, in the very first episode, flirted with a dead colleague’s fiancée at his funeral and moved in with her almost before the second had started.
Someone so red-blooded/predatory could never be tolerated by TV zealots in 2025, obviously, so the new version, played well enough by Damien Molony, is a morose sod beset by his alcoholic demons and devoid of any libido because he’s mourning the loss of his wife.
He’s empathetic as hell, obviously and communicates almost entirely by therapy speak, which will no doubt thrill broadsheet types.
But once you’ve emasculated the cast and neutered the quirky, unique and slightly sinister setting, all you’re really left with here is one more cut-and-paste seaside cop, who just happens to share a name and a car, the 1947 Triumph Roadster, with another TV policeman.
Normally I wouldn’t get so vexed about these misfiring reboots, but Bergerac is one of my desert island TV shows
Normally I wouldn’t get so vexed about these misfiring reboots, but Bergerac is one of my desert island TV shows — a drama I love not just because of prophetically brilliant episodes like Always Leave Them Laughing (Series two, episode two) and dazzling cameos from actors like Michael Gambon (Series five, episode two), but because it reminds me of the 1980s and the people I watched it with first time round who aren’t around any more to enjoy the memory.
I’m also shocked, on a fairly regular basis, to discover television doesn’t have more reverence for its own audience or heritage and is so lacking in imagination it would rather trample all over the medium’s legacy with a soulless, humourless, parasitic, woke imitation than come up with something original.
On the plus side, however…?
On the plus side, I quite like the new graphics.
(Classic Bergerac, U&Drama, today (Friday), 3:15pm)
SKY Showcase’s Kursk: 10 Days That Shaped Putin, running away with the title Best Show Of The Week.
BBC4 repeating Steptoe & Son: Divided We Stand. The singing psychic on Michael McIntyre’s Unexpected Star slot.
Shayne Ward’s Jack Grayling character rounding off series two of C5’s so-bad- it’s-brilliant drama The Good Ship Murder with a chorus of Don’t Leave Me This Way (my thoughts exactly).
Giovanni Pernice proving to be such a conceited jerk I actually cheered when he was caught, hiding in a bus shelter, on Celebrity Hunted.
And Chief Ray Howard defiantly announcing “We will not be able to show our faces in public for 25 years if Duncan James and Christine McGuinness get away,” about half an hour before James and McGuinness got away and won the Channel 4 show. I’ll be holding them to that pledge as well.
PAUL MERSON: “United need to dig deep to get themselves out of this hole.”
Mike Dean: “The keeper is only 20 yards in front of him and 30 or 40 yards behind him.”
And Jamie Carragher: “The only player who had that level of confidence was Wayne Rooney. Jude Bellingham’s got it too.” (Compiled by Graham Wray)
THIS week’s winner is that insufferable little prig Ian Hislop and Mr Knowsmore from Ralph Breaks The Internet. Sent in by Daveyboy.
EDITED highlights, Amanda And Alan’s Spanish Job DIY show,
Amanda Holden: “Starting the day bright and early, I’m back to work in the bedroom. I’ve roped in master decorator Jed.
“I want it everywhere.”
Though, rest assured, I’ll draw a veil over things the moment he “repurposes her chimney flue”.
ON the last ever episode of Wynne & Joanna: All At Sea, BBC One’s suspended opera singer Wynne Evans inadvertently revealed details of his forthcoming Welsh tour as he said: “I want to be an ice cream man, I just want to do it.”
With Llandudno, Barry Island, Porthcawl and other pitches to follow, just as soon as he’s got his food hygiene certificate.
THE Last Leg, Adam Hills: “Hopefully there’s a week when we don’t have to cover Donald Trump too much.” To clarify: The show doesn’t have to cover Donald Trump at all.
Adam chooses to do so, because if he didn’t, the simpering left-wing creep would have to have a go at Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, which would take three things no one at The Last Leg or Channel 4 has got. Talent, integrity and balls.
THE Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “The musical And Juliet, which premiered in the West End in 2019, is inspired by a tragedy by which playwright?”
Shivi Ramoutar: “Hugo Boss.”
Impossible, Rick Edwards: “Which Twin Peaks character is found dead at the start of the first ever episode? B) Leland Palmer, C) Laura Palmer.”
Nicole: “A) Carlton Palmer.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “The birthday of which political activist is celebrated in India with an annual public holiday?”
Jordan: “Guy Fawkes.” “Ghandi.”
And Mastermind, Clive Myrie, looking for Graham Hill: “Which British driver won the F1 world championship in 1962 and 1968?”
James: “Nigel Havers.” (Thanks to TalkSPORT’s Paul Hawksbee)
’S Remember Me slot, on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, finishing without any of her blasts-from-the-past appearing above the caption: “Phillip, TV partner 2009-2023.”
Tim Campbell laughing at every one of Lord Sugar’s lame-ass puns on The Apprentice.
And self-obsessed Amanda Holden using Amanda And Alan’s Spanish Job to make the wild claim: “People are always saying I’ve got big boobs.”
Because they’re most certainly not. Alan, on the other hand…
FOLLOWING EastEnders’ 40th anniversary explosion, Phil Mitchell was left in rehab, Denise Fox reunited with Jack Branning and Reiss Colwell lay dead after a bathtub landed on his head in the remains of The Queen Vic’s kitchen.
Though where the hell that thing came from, I’ve no reasonable idea.
The pub’s bathroom isn’t above the kitchen and doesn’t have a bath anyway, as far as I’m aware.
So I’m guessing it must have been jettisoned by the International Space Station as it passed over Borehamwood, in the middle of last week.
The live episode’s most significant casualty, however, was Martin Fowler, the fruit and veg man turned gangland enforcer turned fruit and veg man (again), who found himself pinned to the floor by a pub beam that was so obviously made of rubber it started twitching every time he talked.
It stretched credulity a bit, then, to believe Martin was about to suffer a fatal rush of blood from the brain, even if the poor delirious sod did suddenly start describing Stacey as “the sexiest thing I’ve ever clapped eyes on”.
It was nice, though, that the Walford paramedic flagged up his imminent demise and invited Stacey and everyone else to sum up Martin’s contribution not just to EastEnders but the wider world of acting with the words: “Say whatever you want to say.”
Okay.
Two pounds of King Edwards and a bag of bananas, please, mate.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Britain’s Got Talent, Dec: “Bruno Tonioli can’t be here in Blackpool.
“The good news is, we’ve got a brilliant replacement, social media sensation KSI.”
No. The good news is, Bruno Tonioli can’t be here in Blackpool.
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