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.

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

2DTV. This, and the Champions League were probably the only reasons why I wasted any time watching ITV.

Funny dialogue, a warped sense of humour and the ability of the 2DTV team to knock these episodes out the same day as major events unfolded is the reason why I made the effort to watch it.

Nothing, it seemed was out of bounds: The US, Iraq War, the British Government, the royal family, The Osbournes, Harry Potter, football, soaps, reality TV, celebrities, Al Qaeda, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... Basically anything that hit the headlines, made it into the show and to hilarious effect.

Although the episodes tended to be only 15 minutes long (and as such, could be easily lost amongst the dreary reality shows ITV usually churned out at 10pm), there was usually never a moment when the show lost it's pace.

The animation was more functional rather than polished, and some of the voices were sometimes off the mark, but neither of these things really detracted from the script itself. The political bias may put some people off, but it's worth persevering even if it's only to see the celebrity gags.

Certainly one to rent/buy on DVD.

2dtv is a series of episodes that don't really catch on they aren't particularly great but do have there little highlights but to be honest you probably would be better off watching something like family guy or south park. The show relates to taking the Mic out of celebrities and well known people witch is sometimes done quite well but in sometimes it is a bit childish watch this if you are really bored and don't really have anything else to do but there are numerous over series to watch that are way more funny. over all i rate is 3 out of to for its slight comical humour.and its unique way of noticing key things that celebrities have or do but it isn't very funny with is a downfall.