BBC One Christmas 2015

I've not spotted that, I have spotted a Boxing day promo. Mind Im looking out of the Hogmany promo.

There was a very bland non Sprout Boy Hogmanay promotion on this afternoon.

Great post Steve people are saying about how good Christmas Day TV was in the past but as you say look at some of the rubbish that was on BBC One on Christmas Day. Like it or not BBC One has their biggest soap, biggest comedy, biggest entertainment show, biggest sci fi show in fact one of their biggest shows and even when they don't get their highest ratings on the day they will get big figures by the time BBC iplayer and Sky + has been taken into account and as you also say BBC 2, Channel 4 etc are putting on a better show than in previous years.

I seen the new sprout boy trailer saying about Turkey Curry yesterday morning.

As Brekkie says, Caroline is battling some health issues. I haven't watched Gogglebox in a while so I don't know where things stand on who takes turns doing voiceovers between her and Craig.

Although I adored the series (I was a latecomer, only bothering to watch it around 2008) I don't want to see it come back. I think it's been horribly mangled and deformed beyond recognition, where I now consider the later specials not to be episodes of The Royle Family, but the characters from The Royle Family starring in a sitcom. Even though I thought Joe's Crackers was decent, the writing became absent of any wit or dramatic effect, famed for its lack of typical gag structure, it later relied on it for laughs. In fact, I watched Barbara's Old Ring earlier today. Besides the decent sub-plot of Jim concealing a scratchcard win from Barbara so he could buy her a surprise present, I could see the gags coming from a mile away.

Denise: "She is an awful mother."
Barbara: "Where are your kids, Denise?"
Denise: "Erm... I dunno."

Caroline admitted in one of the brilliant Gold documentaries that she felt bad for tugging on heartstrings as hard as they did with The Queen of Sheba, and felt inclined to make The New Sofa a lot more comedic and lighthearted, but it was a level of lightheartedness that The Royle Family had never let itself reach. I could see where she was coming from, but I think it's tainted the show as a result of it. As far as I'm concerned, the series finished at The Queen of Sheba. I know I admitted to enjoying Joe's Crackers, but it still strayed too far from the narrative of the original premise.

I feel I've gone off on a bit of a tangent. Ahem... as you were...

They need to look forward rather than back, although I've no objection to spin offs of some classics. Something with Anthony from The Royal Family could work for example as I think it would actually be quite different to the show itself. We can probably ruin out Gavin and Stacey returning in the next five years too, although I think even without his CBS gig James Corden and Ruth Jones seemed to have drawn a line under that.

The Cafe! Well, no it's not Anthony and it's not a spin off of The Royle Family, but it was quite different and starred Ralf Little and was directed by Craig Cash.

That one completely passed me by.

I think Gavin and Stacey would be a welcome surprise, but it's been stated in the past that it's almost impossible to reunite the cast because of the availability of them - and I think that was before Corden got TLLS gig. He has said multiple times that he'd be sad to not do something with the characters again.

As for The Cafe, I seem to recall that being responsible for the delayed Royle Family special. Craig and Caroline infamously failed to deliver a script in time, and I think it was because of Craig's commitments to The Cafe. I can't even say it was a good enough show to warrant the delay...

Your spot on, it crap. It might be better when brand new Still game returns next year

Only a few more days of sprout boy left. I haven't really watched a lot of television so haven't really got sick of it.

I think Christmas has went so fast it's nice to have time to look at all the Christmas idents even if it did start early.

Back to the rubbish boring ones soon. Oh well.

I wonder if we'll see the "winter idents" that were used in January 2015? I presume that the last we'll see of the Christmas ident will be the junction into Bryan Adams at 23:15 tomorrow.

I have to admit, I'm going to miss Sprout Boy. It's been one of the best Christmas promotions from BBC1 in a long while. The news ident image and music were just superb (in my opinion).

Probably sums up Hogmanay on BBC Scotland. I'm not a Still Game fan, and they could probably trot out the same Hogmanay show every time, just overdub the year and very few people would notice or care, it's so stale. I'd much rather have seen Queen last year and Bryan Adams this year. It's an insult that BBC Scotland didn't even think to show the concerts after " the bells ".