Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire. If you haven’t seen it I‘m about to save you the effort. Watch something else. Paint a wall and watch it dry. 'Cos Krod is crud.For those of you who are blissfully unaware (my advice, stay that way – apart from while you are hanging on to my every word, of course) it is a fantasy spoof. You know, warriors and wizards and trolls and a sword that bursts into flames. Which I’m guessing makes it particularly difficult to wield. Singed fingers doth cripple the fighter methinks.
Krod Mandoon should work. It has a strong cast, excellent production values (even to my unpractised eye) and sets and costumes that must have cost a few bob. The problem is a collection of characters displaying all the conviction of a tranny with a goatee and a script as funny as a kick in the danglies.
Think Terry Pratchett after he’s had his sense of humour removed and replaced with that of a random schoolboy.
Now I’m venturing this opinion as someone who is more than happy to dip into the toilet to tickle his funny bone (strange metaphor; hey it works for me) but this is pretty much the sole source of the show’s jokes and frankly it’s shite.
Example one – a group of important looking individuals send Krod and his mates on a quest involving a Cyclops to retrieve some blah (sorry, I zoned out here) and they ended up debating the difference between “normal” hair and pubic hair around the table. Laugh, I couldn’t start.
Actually, at the cyclop’s pad we veer away from the schoolboy humour for just long enough to fit in a couple of “eye” jokes. The cyclops? The big guy with an eye the size of a satellite dish in the middle of his forehead – get it? Example – go on let me give you an example – the Cyclops and his father – wait for it - didn’t see eye to eye. Boom boom.
As a nation, we seem to be stuck on pointing the finger at public bodies who waste our money. Let’s raise a shitstorm on this colossal waste of cash. I have no problem with my money being used to produce TV programmes that the BBC might want to sell around the world. But can we make it good? Pretty please?
It’s time to take stock and re-direct the money being used on this car-crash of a show to a scriptwriter who knows what they are doing and who might have the ability to raise a laugh from an audience over the age of thirteen.
By the way, my son loved it. Aged 11. And now I feel like a bad parent. Not because of the adult content – although that did raise a couple of awkward questions – but because he now thinks that this is what grown-ups should be watching on telly.
-You don’t think anything’s funny, dad, says he when I moaned halfway through.
-I know, I’m a humourless drone who had his funny bone removed at the age of two by a nun wielding a plastic ladle and a dessert fork.
He pauses, gives me THAT stare and then gives me his considered opinion -You’re weird.
In an ideal world? They get hold of Joss Wheedon and the gang at Dollhouse – this is imaginative, well-produced, intelligent television with a script that sparkles with wit while managing to engage and intrigue – and give them every last bit of wallah they have and maybe they will be able to retrieve a few of the licence payers pounds along with their self respect.
‘Nuff said.
