Shooting Stars: Series 7 (2010)

I remember enjoying the surreal comedy of Shooting Stars on BBC2 back in the mid-90’s, but when it came back the first time in 2002, with Will Self as Team A’s captain, and Johnny Vegas as a permanent Team B panellist, it just wasn’t as funny. I saw the 2008 special episode and thought it was good, but I didn’t bother with series 6 last year. I caught part of the second episode of this recent series following That Mitchell & Webb Look, and found myself laughing my head off, so we decided we’d revisit Shooting Stars and watched the rest of the series.

In series 7, Vic and Bob are as hilariously inventive as they used to be, and Ulrika is as game as ever (which is a good job, considering some of the rhymes that Bob comes out with), now Jack Dee is Team B’s captain and Matt Lucas’ George Dawes scorekeeper has been replaced by a creation called Angelos Epithemiou. Dee is good fun, better than Will Self and original captain Mark Lamarr, and Epithemiou, who I was unsure about at first, is no George Dawes but he’s just as funny, just a different kind of funny, he’s more creepy weird, than man-dressed-as-baby weird…

The guests I’ve seen have mostly gone with the flow, and they do seem to ‘get’ the show, what with it’s dove from above round, the random pair of trousers that walk past the teams uncommented on, and the bizarre songs that Vic sings while burying his face in a sack of tomatoes… It’s an odd mix of guests too, from a Pussycat Doll, to Paloma Faith, and James May to Alex Reid, but it works. I love the sense of fun that you get watching Shooting Stars, Vic and Bob seem to really enjoy what they’re doing, and the guests clearly love it too. I’ll definitely be tuning in to the next series.

My favourite question this series that had me in stitches was something like: ‘What's Swedish, cheap, and thousands of people have entered it?' Ulrika, surely!