Blank Screen

I walked into a newsagents the other day to buy a bag of Maltesers. When I got up to the counter, they charged me £24 for them. "Twenty-four quid!" says I, "do I look like a mug?"

Needless to say I was quite surprised when they pulled out a Toby Jug with my exact likeness on it. So obviously I paid up and left.

But anyway.

Blank Screen is an "innovative" "new" "show" broadcast late at night as five minute filler. The premise as described in highlight articles was that they'd be a blank screen for a couple of minutes and then a question and a telephone number would suddenly flash up for people to call. They'd win £500 and that would be it - next programme.

What we've actually got is "comedy". We are treated to a "comedy" title sequence. We're treated to a "comedy" commentary (accept, of course, it's a commentary of a blank screen! Brilliant.). We're treated to a ridiculously easy mobile phone text question (to which the lines close every Sunday at six).

Hilariously, the one thing we're never actually treated to is a blank screen. The blank screen of the title actually has a moving Blank Screen logo in one of the corners. And rather than the blank screen being on for about a minute, possibly heightening tension in a text reaction test sort of way (which as we've previously discussed, it isn't anyway) it's on for about 20 seconds and the commentator (who appears to be a bloke called Marcus Birdman) tells us the question's coming anyway. It's not quite what we were expecting, like when I went into the newsies that time.

In summary then, other than a greedy way for ITV1 to make some easy text money - in which case it has no respect whatsoever for viewers - we're baffled as to what entertainment value or, indeed, point this show has.

|