2DTV

This show is a must see! It's a satirical review of the week's news and has a great cast of characters, including George Bush and his best friend, a sock puppet; the Beckhams; the Blairs and big John Prescott and many more. Animation's great, voices great, show - GREAT!

Tony Blair has his hands full with a cabinet of backstabbers and halfwits. Meanwhile his global action against terrorism and hopes for a new world order are stuttering thanks to the less than helpful help of George W and his new best friend, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I managed to miss the entire first series of this show simply because it's Sunday night screening time more often than not clashed with a film I would want to see. However the second series was repeated later in the week and allowed me to see it. At first I thought that the very colourful cartoon-like animation would mean that the gags would be very childish and silly and, in a way, I was sort of right.

The material is not as cerebral as, say, Rory Bremner, but it is actually more funny for it. Around about a third of the time the gags are quite topical and are reasonably sharp swipes at the week's happenings in the news. However for the majority of the time the comedy is quite broad swipes at basic happenings and basic characters. For example the football Wayne Rooney gets attacked for being a rough Scouse, Bush for being dumb, Arnie for being, well, Arnie. Some of it is clever but most of it is designed to be funny even if you hadn't watched the news for 2 months and only knew about current affairs from reading a tabloid. That's not to say it isn't funny - for it is, but it is not quite what I'd call satire simply because it doesn't make me think - only laugh.

The voice work is very good, although some characters are better than others - Bush is my favourite by far. The series has lost out by ITV giving John Culshaw his own show and thus allowing him to leave 2DTV. However the remainder still do a good job.

Overall this is an enjoyable series but I would prefer if it trusted me enough to make me think or to assume that I'll be aware of what is going on in the world. This is funny but it's like satire for those who don't know a great deal about politics.

I think this programme served its time and feels like the sort of humor you'd expect from the time when this show was released. Obviously 2 decades later a lot of the jokes are feelin quite dated, but that's ok! It would at least bring you right back to the past, and for that purpose, I certainly recommend it.

I also found the custom ITV1 idents based off 2DTV to be quite cool too - that's the sort of thing you'd never expect to see from ITV these days. STV on the other hand, maybe, probably, as they have custom idents for some shows.

I believe I was once a fan of this.

The newest series has been the worst thing I have ever seen. The jokes are extremely poor, they've got rid of the Dead Ringers team and that music played in the background to each animation is embarrassing. Somebody in the production team obviously thought that a low trombone note would increase the hilarity of each animation's 'punchline' no end. They were wrong, very wrong.

The animation is extremely poor, considering the gaps in between the series you would expect some new animating techniques but no, it's the same old animation, same old art.

If you want animated satire then just look at what the BBC has to offer. The excitingly diverse Monkey Dust is being aired on BBC2 on Mondays at 10pm. If Monkey Dust is the Bremner Bird and Fortune of animation, then 2DTV is the Alistair McGowan.

When 2DTV came to our screens it was fresh and satirised all the weeks major events as well as a few misc sketch's' as fillers. the voices were great, although that should have been expected since 2DTV used the voices of the great team from dead ringers.

But recently with the four series the writing has gone down hill. while still scathingly in its satire some sketch's seem half thought through and lacking any sense of the situation, with particular reference to the Arnie sketch's. also the lose of the dead ringers team of voices has meant that the near perfect impersonations that the dead ringers team brought are gone and replaced with voices which still sound like the characters yet never as good as the previous teams take on the characters. the parts of both Tony Blair and George W. Bush are 2 great examples of how the new team of voices are not up to the job, Jon Culshaw who used to provide these voices, had them to a t.

yet despite my criticism the show is still great and when on it is the only reason to watch ITV1.

enjoy