Most Haunted Live: Christmas Edition - by Liam R
Merry fucking Christmas to one and all. I hope all your families have raging arguments, at least one person cries and all your presents are the absolute drizzling shit. I’m not in a particularly festive mood and you can most probably tell, but truth be told I have never been a big Christmas person since I discovered the endless joys of alcohol and having sex with hookers with more diseases than the floor of a local hospital. And if you have read any of my previous missives on the phenomena (and I use that word as lightly as the punch from a newborn baby) of Most Haunted live (available here and here) then you will realise that if you replace Christmas with Most Haunted for the previous couple of sentences that those feeling run true for that as well. Hurrah for offensive introductory passages!
When we last left Most Haunted, Antix weren’t just up shit creek without a paddle, but the boat had sprung a leak (oh I kill myself), bracing itself for the inevitable backlash which no doubt resulted from parapsychologist Ciaran O’Keefe’s revelation that Derek Acorah may not have been a genuine medium. Quite the bombshell, no? For those at the back who can’t be bothered to keep up, the long and the short of it is that O’Keefe went to the Mirror and told them that he was behind the planting of completely fictitious people that Derek had been possessed by in a previous series (as well as Derek getting possessed by a fictional character in a book before then), casting doubts on the bleached scouser’s already thinning credibility. Then, during the ensuing Most Haunted Live O’Keefe did it again, this time dropping a fake name (a town in America if I can recall correctly) within earshot of Derek and BOOM! Off went Derek on the dance of the possessed.
Other revelations from that show were that Derek was leaving to be replaced by Gordon ‘The Psychic Hairdresser’ Smith, and presenter David ‘Jazz Eyes’ Bull who was to be replaced by who knows? The smart money was on Julian ‘Look At The Size Of His Fucking Ears! You Could Receive Satellite With Those!’ Clegg, or the bloke who played Spencer Moon in EastEnders who did a bang up job (apparently, I never watched it – I was too busydrinking) presenting Dead Famous Live (same as Most Haunted, but with Gail Porter, set in America and chasing Dead people who were, erm, Famous). Who we eventually got in to present has no doubt scarred my mind, the unfathomable shittiness of what was bestowed upon us is still being quantified by those nerds at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology.
As if that wasn’t enough of the proverbial bombshell, television regulators Ofcom produced a report on Most Haunted (and by way of association, Most Haunted Live) after they received a number of complaints over the Jack The Ripper show. And boy was it a doozy. I’m not going to repeat it all, though you can read it here (second red link, halfway down as I can't seem to find the actual report on Ofcom's website), but if anything this sentence should leave you in no doubt as to the tone of the report:
“We therefore do not believe that these programmes could reasonably be described, in terms of the Code, as a ‘legitimate investigation’.”
As my Granddad would say “I can tell you’re Irish because you’re bullshitting.” Now I’m not one to revel in anyone’s misery, but this has to be it. They’ve been pretty much outed by EVERYONE as a complete con, so let’s just see how truly awful it can be…
Friday – The Bluecoat Place
And within thirty seconds Most Haunted lurches into almost unfathomable depths of shittiness as new presenter Jamie Darling trips over his, erm, cue, ah, cards and mumbles, sort sort of like th-this. And even the previous sentence doesn’t sum up just how useless Darling is, but does provide a constant stream of bad jokes ripped straight out of Blackadder. And it’s not as if he has never presented TV before, but while I may have ripped Bull mercilessly in previous episodes but he had ‘jazz eyes’ and an admittedly misplaced enthusiasm. Darling has the charisma of a slug and it became apparent he had no idea what he had let himself in for.
After the so-funny-it’s-bad intro we go to the location where Yvette, the travelling gang of Idiots and My Rachel introduce us to their latest stupid idea. Bringing back Max The Incredibly Psychic Dog, the crew decided to attach A FUCKING DOG CAMERA to him. Aside from the obvious animal cruelty issues, what the fuck were they smoking when they thought that was a good idea? Do Antix/MH production meetings consist of passing round a crack pipe and waiting for the most stupid ideas to come out? I mean, A FUCKING DOG CAMERA?
One more time: A FUCKING DOG CAMERA?
As the crew investigates the location, Richard ‘Fingers’ Felix claims he’s being attacked by nails. Don’t worry, we’re not that fucking lucky. After the attack of the killer building supplies, the crew settles down into a séance where nothing of note happens. Now I’m sure spirits were communicated with, and I think I remember a bell falling off of a table but I didn’t write anything down HENCE nothing of note. Crafty, no?
The next thing I have written down is ‘dog turd’. Hmm. I know what you’re thinking, but stop giggling. At this point I think I stopped caring, well a lot less than I usually do which is: I don’t give a fucking crap. Actually, Max The Really Really Psychic Dog needed to take a literal shit. The next note I have is ‘shadows’ but I think it’s a bit pointless trying to figure out just what happened. Guess I chose the wrong week to stop snorting pro plus. Man that shit is hard to kick.
The last thing of the night of note is KILLER STONES! Yes apparently and my memory is a little hazy, but the crew were attacked by stones thrown by an unseen hand. It should also be noted that Stuart the Balding Rigger was off camera during all these shenanigans, like he was off camera when the crew have had things thrown at them before. Is this a conspiracy, is this a coincidence? Stay Tuned To Find Out.
Saturday – Unknown
I was out on the piss, and the person who wanted to review Saturday night hasn’t got back to me. Just rinse and repeat Friday’s review and you’ll have a good idea.
Sunday – Royal Court Theatre
We kick off the foolishness right off the bat when someone calls the team very, very brave, in the same patronising tone you’d say the exact same phrase to, say, a small child. My immensely witty retort is: “Brave My Arse!” This is now entertainment, so they’re not brave – they’re fucking acting. And they’re not just fucking acting, but they’re fucking acting is really fucking bad. Fuck.
The cavalcade of crap continues as Satellite Dish Ears decides that the only way to ramp up the ratings is by giving away a car. Not only a car, but a car festooned with Most Haunted stickers. This is it, I promise. I can’t review this shite anymore. It’s just getting too much.
Finally we get on with some vague form of ‘investigation’ and Producer Karl gets dragged down a tunnel somewhere in the bowels of the building. I have no idea where, but that’s because I wasn’t paying attention. Also I’m not convinced he was actually dragged as he was there with Stuart (cue ominous music here) and there was no camera with them to film it (cue even more ominous music here). When we finally get a camera down there, my immediate view was thus: “lots of moaning, and two men lying next to each other”.
Now there is nothing wrong with that – we’re not hate mongers here at the Donkeys. We move to even more ludicrous fits of table tipping involving a bucket of water which is just so mind bogglingly stupid I won’t dignify it any further. In fact the night just seems to crawl away into nothing and I wish for the halcyon days of bad possessions and Jazz Eyes. Sigh.
The End Bit
Well that was truly a train wreck wasn’t it? I actually envy those who chose to watch anything, ANYTHING than that. But again it comes back to a few key problems which are now manifesting themselves worse than cobwebs posing as upside down ghosts. Most Haunted is now a victim of not only its’ own success, but also of the very formula which gave it that success in the first place. So where exactly did it all go wrong?
1.Building Up The Viewers Expectations – May as well wheel out the heavy artillery from the get go mightn’t we? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, download an episode of the first series and compare it to one from the later series and you will see what I mean. What started off as a film crew getting scared shitless by assorted creaks and groans to full blown possessions, orbs galore, intelligent tapping, vaudeville tricks and poltergeist activity. Not necessarily all at the same time, but enough to make you believe that something was going to happen in each episode. It’s this were Most Haunted starts losing it’s credibility as it would take even the most respected and professional paranormal investigators countless nights and re-visits to get what Most Haunted does in one night. In the case of Most Haunted Live, it was the Saturday night investigation during the Pendle Hill Halloween special that it literally all kicked off at one time, deluding the viewers into thinking that this was what was going to happen all the time. And when it doesn’t happen, that’s when they switch off their TVs and watch something else.
2.Mediums – A personal bug bear of mine. If you want a serious paranormal investigation you can’t rely on a subject which has barely any credibility within the realm of the scientific. What’s worse is that the mediums on the show are targeting the crew personally, which gives them an added air of credibility in the minds of the viewers.
3.Tricks – I’m sorry but table tilting, ouija boards, scrying, and all those other Victorian parlour games aren’t serious either. Especially when one of your own crew members was caught on camera smashing a glass and claiming it to be paranormal. It may make compelling television (Pendle Hill again), but what merit does it have?
Of course there are numerous other flaws with the show (not enough cameras, not enough locked away experiments, etc.) and now with the Ofcom report looming large Antix are faced with a dilemma: Amp up the theatrics and pass the show off as entertainment OR strip it all away and attempt to do the show right, with proper people actually trying to find evidence of the paranormal rather than a load of people trying to be famous. The ball’s in your court Yvette.