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March 28, 2024, 02:45:15 PM

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Death to 2021

Started by BritishHobo, December 03, 2021, 04:31:50 PM

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BritishHobo

Sequel to Charlie Brooker's Netflix review of the year thingy has been announced, although he won't be writing it this time, replaced instead by a fellow Cunk writer.

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a38420660/netflix-death-to-2021-nick-mohammed/

The actors from the original (Hugh Grant, Diane Morgan, Joe Keery etc) are being joined by a few new names including Nick Mohammed, and William Jackson Harper.

I was gutted not to like the 2020 - parts of it I liked, but it overall felt like without Brooker himself narrating it lacked the bite of his voice, and it suffered massively from the fact that the internet has become so relentless these days that I felt burned out by all the stuff the special covered. I guess I'll give this a go, but those issues will still be there.

Alberon

Yeah, I don't think I'll bother. Especially if Brooker isn't even writing it.

I think I made it five minutes into the first one.
Did you see how smelly that last series of black mirror was an' all?
That Cunk shite writes itself so what is it he actually does now?

Noodle Lizard

It had a couple of laughs in there, but mostly felt like someone trying to ape Charlie Brooker's writing style. Which is pretty much what it was, I suppose.

bomb_dog

It reminded me that 2021 was full of world-ending, apocalyptic, divisive and/or depressive shit, without any of the 'TV Burp' type interludes to remind you that not everything is terrible and laughs can be had about daft things too. I don't remember any news or events from the UK or Europe though, COP notwithstanding. It was pretty much a US focussed production.

I did really like the last in the photo montage of 'I was there when...' though.

Bring back 'wipe'.

Butchers Blind

Is Rhys Thomas doing his thing this year?

olliebean

Quote from: Butchers Blind on December 28, 2021, 11:19:45 AMIs Rhys Thomas doing his thing this year?

Doesn't look like it. He didn't last year either, so we may have had all we're going to get of those.

neveragain

Well, I still liked Hugh Grant and Diane Morgan but the rest was quite a trawl. A smattering of nice lines.

BritishHobo

This and Don't Look Up have just made me feel a bit sad and hopeless. That everything is shit and awful and we're just kinda chuckling about it because there's nothing we can do. Cristin Milioti is really good in this, but she's photoshopped in next to loads of people who are actually that terrifying in real.

Video Game Fan 2000

The last funny "Wipe" was 2012.

Billy

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on December 28, 2021, 10:38:08 PMThe last funny "Wipe" was 2012.

I think you're right there, was 2013 the one with 'Reasons To Be Fearful' at the end? Retrospectively that felt like a bit of a shark jump moment and it wasn't quite as good anymore, although at the time I was just a bit underwhelmed that after a bad year Brooker hadn't made me feel any better about it.

(christ, I thought 2013 was a bad time, I'd jump at a chance to live in a pre-Brexit/pre-pandemic/new Bowie album world now)

evilcommiedictator

It's all rather predictable but yet fucking awful innit? Partner is watching it now, and I want to kill Hugh Grant. I UNDERSTAND HE WAS IN 4 WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL YES YOU ARE VERY FUNNY MAKING A JOKE ABOUT SELF IDENTIFICATION AS A PRIEST
US Soldiers preferring to work from home in Afghanistan? Great line, thrown away.
US AirBNB rating gone to shit after the withdrawl? All James Bonds aren't men, but women without cervixes?

ajsmith2

Quote from: Billy on December 29, 2021, 12:01:34 AMI think you're right there, was 2013 the one with 'Reasons To Be Fearful' at the end? Retrospectively that felt like a bit of a shark jump moment and it wasn't quite as good anymore, although at the time I was just a bit underwhelmed that after a bad year Brooker hadn't made me feel any better about it.



Pretty sure it was 2014, I remember cos I was particularly hideously depressed that festive season and the reasons to be fearful bit is just one more miserable memory of a seemingly never ending litany of pain and ennui.

ajsmith2

If Wipe was last any good in 2012, (a year now notoriously eulogised in retrospect by blue tick folk as a glory age of a united UK because Olympics ceremony) does that suggest that the Wipe format only functioned as effective satire during Blair/Brown/Coalition/Bush/Obama end of end of history neoliberal consensus times?

H-O-W-L

I think it's more, as people have talked to death about, the fact that Brooker's satire lost a lot of its edge around the same time. With the sheer violent edge of some of the content that he was writing about in '14 and would be writing about today, you really need a much stronger edge on it and a very clear and violent personal voice. It's why Morris' works all typically hold up better than Brooker's -- even works that are considered to be his worst. No matter what Morris really does have something to say and wouldn't have written if he didn't. In contrast I think Brooker really did end up going the motions (the fact he doesn't even write them anymore shou;d kinda sell that) after 2012 and just didn't have the heart in it anymore.

The format could still work but you would need some real like, Season 2 Screenwipe or even TVGH level anger and bitterness to really sell it and back it up with. I don't even mean pure negativity, I just mean passion to point at shit things and scream them down rather than the kind of "Oh Dear!" sort of tone the latter Wipes developed. It's like that one Curtis doc he aired in Newswipe.

Video Game Fan 2000

Yes, to both.

To effectively satirise or just humorously vent about the current times you can't disconnect Trump, Brexit, Euro-populism and the rise of mega-corps like Amazon from the total failure of free market liberalism and the lovey dovey progressivism, which had the attitude that everything just gets good on its own and everything finds its mean. Everything goes back to normal eventually, normal but better!

Brooker seems like one of many who were angrily against the status quo during those years but now views them as the sane before-times, before the lunatics took over the asylum.

I think there's also the fact that social media merging with journalism into the same amorphous lump means that being withering and cynical about current affairs is the boring, establishment thing now and not the remit of an angry ranting gamer in a flat. By the time it gets around to December there's not much left to say that hasn't been said a thousand times and merged with a Dril tweet.

KennyMonster


Halfway through seeing this and something irks a lot, the fact that they are using spoof news anchor characters and fake news bulletins.
The best bits of Brooker were where he'd let the media's idiocy speak for itself by playing genuine footage (albeit maybe with his narration highlighting the stupidity/hypocrisy).

Why is there need to include the spoofs (spooves?) too?

H-O-W-L

Googling it it seeems like it has stirred up a brouhahaha because it mocks Philip's death. Can't they understand it's only fiction? He's still in hospital!

Icehaven

This strikes me as being a bit like when a hugely successful genre author either dies or wants to churn out more books than it's physically possible to write so other lesser known authors are drafted in to pick up the mantle or be the "and/with" name on the cover. The shadow of old Brooker is on it but it's like a weak tribute act.

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on December 29, 2021, 01:52:23 PMBy the time it gets around to December there's not much left to say that hasn't been said a thousand times and merged with a Dril tweet.

Yep. This has been the problem for TV and print satire pretty much since the internet started, and while most of it has realised this and given up you get the odd thing like this still appearing and reminding us how pointless it is trying to be biting and cutting edge about something that happened 6 months ago, which might as well be 6 years in news churn time.

markpaterson

It was truly fucking awful.

If Brooker has any dignity he will remove his name from future episodes and disavow. One of the things that made Wipe so great, apart from his biting delivery, was how it would gather its material from all sources, NOT just the same network it exists on. Death to 2021 was essentially just half news commentary and half promos for other Netflix shows.

My wife put it on on NYE, after remembering it from last year. After 30 seconds I was basically hate watching through to the end. Neither of us laughed at any moment. It simply ended, then we watched something else and never spoke of it again. I felt like it would have been funnier had they just crowd-sourced the material via Reddit upvotes.

But then you look it up on Twitter and it's all "OMG Death to 2021 is so fucking funny" so what do I know?