I guess it seems like a rather sad moment, when one’s life is so affected by a piece of televisual entertainment that it is completely paramount to commit an opinion to the page. However…. This is ‘Most Haunted’ and it is officially one of the most gripping things you can experience on the box right now. Seriously – Go and watch it. ‘But why?!’ I hear you cry, ‘Why, when it is patently a piece of crap?’ Well….
The new series started this week and I thought I was actually going to cause myself a laughing induced mishap. I’ve written about Most Haunted before here. Probably complaining about Derek Akorah being possessed all the time now that the viewing figures were up. Just in case you haven’t heard about ‘MH’ where you’ve been living, under that rock, there on one of Jupiter’s many moons. Io, perhaps. Here’s what the whole shebang is about. The lovely Yvette Fielding (Her off Blue Peter) and a team of random people including a psychic medium and a routine sceptic go to supposedly ‘haunted’ locations, turn off all the lights and let their imaginations run wild. Occasionally they get the odd unusual event, but for the most part they interpret run of the mill events and sounds as ‘The Paranormal’. You can hear the capital letters when they say it. I don’t know why it is so brilliant. Or indeed, why it is so popular outside of my house. I just have to rant on about last week’s episode, because in my view, it was classic!
For some reason, Yvette has a little bit of a penchant for black coats. Usually leather and often floor-length. The creation she had on in this week’s episode just had to have been hand made by a crazed fan. I don’t think I can do the garment justice using mere words, but it was a sort of Elizabethan gown of a coat lovingly created from padded black nylon. At best, it was a puffa jacket to the waist and then it flared out into a floor length ballgown type skirt. Flared! Pleated!! Her tiny feet just poked out of the bottom. It made her look about four foot tall and around seventeen stone. Yvette had to wander through underground tunnels during the introduction to the programme and you could see she probably needed to turn sideways to get about the place. I must have been staring at all this, mouth agape, until she mentioned the sinister large, black figure seen roaming the tunnels whilst looming about the place in this bloody coat thing. Hmmm. Large black figure, you say… Was this very recently?
Anyway. The coat was a little bit of a distraction, to say the least, but once the show started, there was the new medium to contend with. I rather liked her at first, despite the fact that I couldn’t catch her name. I think it was Jonnie. Evidently Derek has moved on to bigger and better things. (He’s on at the Catford theatre if The Pook is to be believed.) I found his weekly demonic possessions to be a little silly after a while. Although when he went into a trance and started shouting ‘Mary loves Dick, Mary loves Dick!’ I’ll admit to a little puerile hysteria. The new medium has huge bulging eyes, keeps goading the spirits to chuck stuff at Yvette and gives the lady herself a run for her money in the screaming and running stakes. I like her already, even though she made a reference to the ‘Elizabethian’ Period. (She is American, so we can forgive that.) Derek never screamed or ran. He maintained calm Liverpudlian dignity at all times. Sometimes he ‘passed out’ during possessions, but that was all part of the fun.
My favourite part of the show was when the group discovered this particularly dingy part of the tunnels and the medium kept saying how sinister it was and how people had been ‘lured’ here. (Come on, we all enjoy a good ‘lure’ now and again.) It was a dark and evil place and she didn’t like being there at all. Yvette asked her if it was good place for a séance and she was all ‘Oh, absolutely!!’ Bizarre. Anyway, Yvette then said ‘Hey, let’s have the séance right here.’ (Which also amused me, and if you know why that is, then I will absolutely love you forever.)
The ‘ghostie’ then went a bit stone-chucking happy. (Always from the direction of just behind the camera. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…….interesting.) Basically everyone gets a pebble chucked at them at least every ten minutes and when the historical expert comes along (I’ll come back to her later, you’ll be pleased to know) and gets hit right on the head, I’m starting to think that this might be the best episode EVER. Unfortunately, this is the time for an ad break which oddly includes adverts for Rambo 4 (which The Pook and I have dubbed ‘Oldbo’) and headlice. (Well, not FOR headlice! -for headlice treatments.) What’s the bloody demographic here?
Meanwhile, back at the séance, our friendly medium has stated that there are ten ghosts hovering around the table. (Ten!? Bit bloody greedy.) With encouragement from the medium the ghosts are encouraged to pelt Yvette with stones yet again and also bang the table about. How did they get a table into this room at the end of a maze of tunnels? Magic? The historian seems to be able to get the best results from the ghosts, she does rather a lot of random shouting about ‘Harry’ and ‘England’. The ghost does some drumming on the table, which they associate with the marching of armies, but sounds more like the thing I do with my fingers to indicate extreme annoyance to small boys. (You know, it goes with raised eyebrows and mouth pursed like a cat’s bum.) Then…something Evil cometh. You can tell it’s Evil, because the medium says so, plus it slaps one of the girls on the head (HA!) and keeps jigging Yvette’s chair until she cries. (Obviously a
boy Evil ghost– that’s just how they roll.)
Shortly after the séance ends, as usual, with absolutely no concrete evidence of anything at all, Yvette drops a bombshell. The girls are going to come back down here alone later on to ‘further probe the cloying darkness’…. Whatever… I sense running and screaming in night vision. I am not disappointed in the least. The girls spend the whole time ‘shhh’ing each other and pointing at pebbles on the ground. Best of all is when Yvette starts on about a weird sound and then they all start shouting about the smell of sulphur. (Fear can do funny things to the bowels, after all.) It’s all some good quality screaming girl time. They get the hell out of there in about a minute flat.
Sadly, here the show ends, because there’s just too much screaming and running in the dark to cover in a single show. Sniff. The second half airs this Tuesday. I’m dying to watch it, but Tuesday is drinks night and I just can’t justify missing my one night out a week. I think it’s repeated Saturday. I don’t know if I can wait. And yes, that shames me deeply. Look how much I’ve written about it. I’m hanging my head as I check out the TV guide for the weekend.
Labels: my secret shame
