Newzoids - What do you think?

[Anna B]

Wednesday, ITV 9.0pm.

 

Hailed as the new 'Spitting image' but was it?

 

It certainly has a similar look, but I thought the jokes were a bit weak. Maybe it just has to get into its stride.

 

Loved William and Kate's baby George, who's inherited Kate's 'common' gene, and thought the 'Mrs Crown's boys' starring the Royal family, had legs, although this particular week wasn't great. But the political skits didn't have enough bite as yet.

 

I don't think we've ever needed a good satire show as much as we do now, and the politicians we have at the moment should be a gift.

 

I'll stick with it for a couple more weeks.

[alchresearch]

I think the timeslot is rather odd. If they want to pull in the Spitting Image generation it needs to be on Sunday night like SI used to be.

[ricgem2002]

The tax dodging Gary Barlow song was good

[poppet2]

Spitting Image was how most people learnt the names of everyone in the Thatcher cabinet.

[medusa]

It lasted 5 minutes before we turned it off.

[janie48]

 

I thought the jokes were a bit weak. Maybe it just has to get into its stride.

 

I tuned in just as they were showing Nigel Farage.

 

Questioner" Mr Farage why are you against immigration, your wife is a foreigner"?

Farage "Yes but she came here to do a job that a British worker won't do."

[esme]

We watched the first one, started thinking it was a bit pants early on but gave it a chance to improve, it didn't, we won't be watching it again

[Native lad]

I saw the first episode, I'll not be watching any more. To my mind, it wasn't half as good as Spitting Image and the puppets weren't even anywhere near as funny in appearance. My first impressions were that the puppets looked too crisp and clean cut, like computer generated images. Their movement wasn't even as good as the original Thunderbirds puppets. What made the Spitting Image puppets look funny (in an entertaining sense) was that the features that most identified the real people were outrageously exaggerated, as if 3D versions of an animator's impressions. It looked like the people that had designed the Newzoids puppets had attempted to do the same, but had restrained themselves from going the whole hog, as if political correctness had been a limiting factor. The dialogue in Newzoids was grossly and unnecessarily crude, as if just being crude was enough to make something funny in its own right. The odd well placed bad language can complement the narrative and be funny, but the art of using it appears not to have been learnt by the script writers. Spitting Image was certainly rude at times, but it was always to highlight a characteristic and make a point; the script writers were clearly making a political jibe. The same cannot be said of Newzoids, in my opinion. In summary, Newzoids was not funny or critical enough for me to spend more time with it. The difference between Newzoids and Spitting Image can be likened to the difference between the work of a trainee and the work of a master artist. Don't waste your time with it.

 

I wonder whether Baby George's "common gene" would have been more correctly described as a chav gene?

Edited April 27, 2015 by Native lad

[ukdobby]

Very poor,watched 1st one and 1st 5 minutes of 2nd one.

[leviathan13]

I thought it was pretty good. I chuckled most of the way through it, and had a couple of laugh out louds.

 

For someone who was only just too young for Spitting Image, I think it's a decent piece of satire for people of a certain age. As for it not being critical or hardhitting enough - I thought the Katie Hopkins skit and Nigel Farage songe to be very near the knuckle for this day and age.

 

Don't forget, when Spitting Image came out comedy had to be classed as 'anarchic' and 'alternative' to attract a certain type of audience to help attack the establishment. We've moved on and the world is a lot more liberal with being able to say what it can without upsetting the stiff upper lip. My own personal opinion of the comments on here are along the lines of 'it wasn't like that in my day'. Newzoids is nothing new, but then again, neither was Spitting Image. Satire happened before Spitting Image, and people will have watched that with the same view that it wasn't critical enough etc.

 

It's good that someone is at least trying to carry on the tradition of ripping the establishment to bits.