Did we like it?
It took two viewings to appreciate it. First time round, we didn’t find many laughs from this CGI-enhanced sketch show. A repeat viewing helped it make sense and, while it’s not hilarious, writers Ben Wheatley and Jack Cheshire have come up with a programme that does exhibit inventiveness and darkness.
What was good about it?
• Rasmus Hardiker was in it, albeit in a non-speaking role, as a hotel guest who falls into a drunken slumber and is subjected to pranks from flying fairies who send a you’re-dumped text to his girlfriend and set the fire alarm off after removing his trousers and switching on the porn channel.
• The Superhero Tryouts (which should have done without Dr Neil Fox on the panel) featured a human spider creating a web from his arse. It couldn’t have been puerile but succeeded as a portrayal of desperation.
• The man who gets birds to fly in a “Will U marry me?” formation, only for his girlfriend to be oblivious to the message.
• We were bored and dismissive of the running sketch involving a dancemat devotee who follows the flashing panels out of the house and down the road, but it did have a great pay-off, ending with her being caged with other sad addicts in a vast building.
• Every sketch show seems to feature the introduction of the boy/girlfriend to stiff, nervy parents, but The Wrong Door’s version had a fine twist: Philip was not only a former lecturer at Nottingham Trent University but he was a dinosaur who shunned the proferred carrot cake and devoured pet dog Biggles instead.
• The angry zebra crossing and the robot stomping over London to find his lost house keys put the CGI to very good use.
What was bad about it?
• The sketches in conventional settings – girls in an office and a couple in bed – were the least successful. The office sketch featured a blow-up man doll, free in Her magazine; the bedroom sketch dealt with sexual fantasies. Neither were particularly funny or unique.
• The running sketch about the failed creation of a killing machine (and the accidental creation of the world’s most annoying creature, a nappied toddler) was as irritating as the creature.
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