New Alan Partridge Podcast & This Time S2 Coming

[Bazooka]

It was just completely off tone wise, Alan has been in a multitude of different formats yet he has never stuck out like a saw thumb, with TT the character(not Steve's performance being off) just didn't sit right. I know every raved about Jen, but I thought her performance juxtaposed with Alan didn't fit, she was playing the ''play a one show presenter'' too well. I think I said this when it aired, but nobody agreed.

[Cold Meat Platter]

stuck out like a saw thumb

Stuck out like a what?

[popcorn]

yeeeeeooooowwwwchh!!!

[Twonty Gostelow]

Awks!!

[Twonty Gostelow]

Seriously though, that was a bad error.

[Bazooka]

I teach English also, burn me and bury me.

[Menu]

I know every raved about Jen, but I thought her performance juxtaposed with Alan didn't fit, she was playing the ''play a one show presenter'' too well. I think I said this when it aired, but nobody agreed.

I was saying this too. She was playing it too broad - about 5 big grimaces a show. I always think it works better when the supporting actors under-sell rather than over-sell. That's why I've never really liked Felicity Montagu's acting in AP or even Tim Key's. It's too "ooooh what's he said now?!<big grimace>". If you think back to the best Partridge moments throughout the last 30 years they nearly all contain much lower-key acting from the supporting cast.

[Bazooka]

Agreed, well not so much on Lynn. Tim Key had a better balance on Mid Morning Matters, but yes on this he was bordering on his character playing his character.

[BeardFaceMan]

Agreed, well not so much on Lynn. Tim Key had a better balance on Mid Morning Matters, but yes on this he was bordering on his character playing his character.

I'd disagree with that, i thought Key played it well, like a deer caught the headlights, never quite knowing what to do. Its Simons first time anywhere near tv, never mind mainstream live tv, he had a combination of nervousness and trying too hard that I thought worked well. His performance should have been different to how he was on the radio where hes experienced and in his element.

[paruses]

I'd disagree with that, i thought Key played it well, like a deer caught the headlights, never quite knowing what to do. Its Simons first time anywhere near tv, never mind mainstream live tv, he had a combination of nervousness and trying too hard that I thought worked well. His performance should have been different to how he was on the radio where hes experienced and in his element.

I agree. I thought Simon was one of the funniest bits of the series. I think he gets funnier as he develops a sense of confidence which he expresses in the way normal people rather than consumate professionals do - like following the path out loud to images on the overly complicated multimedia board - "Handshake ... Bird it ... Envelope ... Nothing ... Home ... Handshake ..[...]" .

They touched on the awkwardness and inconvenience of This Time on the Rule of Three podcast episode with Katy Wix. Worth listening to. But then I love listening to AP being discussed.

[imitationleather]

It says a lot that I bit of this series I enjoyed most was when it was Alan and Sidekick Simon presenting together in the final episode and it basically just turns into Mid Morning Matters.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Obviously Coogan would want Key when they'd been so good together on MMM, but it didn't make sense that someone as inexperienced as Sidekick Simon would be allowed on TT straight away when Alan is initially just a stopgap presenter with no hiring influence.

EDIT: Just realised I'm a boring bastard. I'll be saying it doesn't make sense that Alan still has a career after killing Forbes McAllister next.

[Magnum Valentino]

Obviously Coogan would want Key when they'd been so good together on MMM, but it didn't make sense that someone as inexperienced as Sidekick Simon would be allowed on TT straight away when Alan is initially just a stopgap presenter with no hiring influence.

EDIT: Just realised I'm a boring bastard. I'll be saying it doesn't make sense that Alan still has a career after killing Forbes McAllister next.

No, this is true and I thought so as well, but even the idea that Alan himself would be given the gig doesn't really make sense.

[the]

This sort of thing cropped up when talking about Red Dwarf recently, that you can kill any comedy set-up by going 'that wouldn't happen though'.

There is a difference between 'this visibly doesn't hang together because it's lazily written' and 'I'm running a simulation of this world in my mind and I'm finding some discrepancies' (although the line between the two will be different for everybody).

But in the second instance you've pretty much stopped viewing it as a comedy that needs to do certain things to survive as a comedy.

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah, agreed, none of this entered my head when I was watching it and I think the only time that's ever actually happened was when I watched The Purge and couldn't get away from my feeling that it just...couldn't happen.

[pigamus]

It just keeps taking you out of the moment though. It's still funny but there's so much sawing and hammering needed to make it work.

[Ludicrous Display]

I liked it, sorry lads.

[BeardFaceMan]

As did i, it takes as much sawing and hammering to make it not work as it does to work. I think the main problem is people's expectations of what the show was going to be/should've been, and the talk of it not working mainly stems from that.

[popcorn]

I think the arguments along the lines of "most comedy (and indeed fiction for that matter) requires some suspension of disbelief so why are you complaining" don't acknowledge that there is a spectrum along which things become more or less believable or more or less consistent within their own universes, etc. The fact that X show might feel more believable/acceptable/coherent/however-you-want-to-put despite being less realistic than Y show does not mean that therefore you're wrong to find Y a bit weird, etc. It is an elastic band that stretches in multiple dimensions.

I'm sympathetic to the people who found This Time a little bit uncanny in that regard as I think it did play with the edges of things in a different way, and it's something that occurred to me as I watched it too. I don't think the fact that it triggered multiple conversations here indicates that CaB is suffers from mass stupidity. But I enjoyed it at the time and I enjoyed it even more when I rewatched a few months ago.

[buttgammon]

I thought it was okay, it just didn't hit the same heights as a lot of recent Partridge. The way the character keeps unravelling in MMM, the two books, Oast House and things like Scissored Isle is fantastic, and I felt like some of that depth was missing. It wasn't bad by any means but the bar is very high.

[Ferris]

I thought it was okay, it just didn't hit the same heights as a lot of recent Partridge. The way the character keeps unravelling in MMM, the two books, Oast House and things like Scissored Isle is fantastic, and I felt like some of that depth was missing. It wasn't bad by any means but the bar is very high.

Yeah that's where I am as well. It's a nice bit of partridge to add to the canon, but some of the recent stuff has been so excellent it seems churlish to complain when not everything is as good as The Oast House or whatever.

[BeardFaceMan]

I thought it was okay, it just didn't hit the same heights as a lot of recent Partridge. The way the character keeps unravelling in MMM, the two books, Oast House and things like Scissored Isle is fantastic, and I felt like some of that depth was missing. It wasn't bad by any means but the bar is very high.

I'd argue it had a bit of an arc, with Alan being nervous and unsure of himself at the start of the series and being confident and a total prick by the end.

[pigamus]

I think you don't have as much control when you're on the telly, the Gibonseseseses probably had to placate a lot of tv execs and so on, harder to do that fanatical attention to detail they're rightly praised for

[Magnum Valentino]

Mid Morning Matters was on TV but, and doesn't feel editorially mandated.

[BeardFaceMan]

Big difference between Sky Atlantic and BBC1 though. And the first series was on the web first so obviously they had a lot more creative freedom.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I agree. I thought Simon was one of the funniest bits of the series. I think he gets funnier as he develops a sense of confidence which he expresses in the way normal people rather than consumate professionals do - like following the path out loud to images on the overly complicated multimedia board - "Handshake ... Bird it ... Envelope ... Nothing ... Home ... Handshake ..[...]" .

The last bit was well observed, how these magazine shows force their presenters through some gimmick or angle, wasting their talent (if there is any) in the process.

[Ornlu]

I'd argue it had a bit of an arc, with Alan being nervous and unsure of himself at the start of the series and being confident and a total prick by the end.

Absolutely. First episode: "Can I have a glass of water please my mouth is dry"
Episode 4: "Where's my fucking water?"
Episode 6, being summoned to the Director General: _{"Can I have a glass of water please"}

[Menu]

I think you don't have as much control when you're on the telly, the Gibonseseseses probably had to placate a lot of tv execs and so on, harder to do that fanatical attention to detail they're rightly praised for

Fucking hell, I hope it wasn't noticeably shitter because of BBC1 execs trying to make it 'accessible'.

[Junket Pumper]

I think I've listened to this four times in full. Love the bit where Alan suspects Eamon Holmes is High Noon so he snaps and grabs him by "some of his throat". And the bit about an Escort doing doughnuts in a car park. "The Ford car doing wheel spins, not a sex worker with a binge eating problem".

[paruses]

I like how Alan's outdoor coats are just too big.