W1A

Only 3 seasons? Really?? Ah, I guess it's hard to keep a cast like this together for long. What seemed like pure silliness at first really grew on me. I really ended up caring about these characters. When I went to start the next season and discovered there was none, I was heartbroken.

I watched the first few episodes of the first season and giggled appropriately. Goodness knows the BBC makes a good target for this kind of satire and is a good proxy for many similar corporate settings. But after a while fatigue set in. Compared with Twenty Twelve which was consistently laugh-out-loud funny, too many characters in W1A share similar lines and "yes/no/cool" affectations. But what really fails is the mockumentary angle. It was tenuous in Twenty Twelve but just about kept within the lines as an unlikely but feasible documentary. W1A would have been better pitched as a straightforward satirical comedy rather than having a narration constantly remind the viewer that we are supposed to regard this as a reality programme.

I suppose the natural career change for "2012"'s Olympics supremo Ian Fletcher was to an executive position at another of the great talking-shops, the BBC itself. Thus "W1A" continues very much in the footprints of its predecessor, with Fletcher at the centre of the middle of things at the Beeb, quickly becoming the spokesperson and whipping boy for a number of topical-at-the-time scandals at the corporation, involving regional discrimination and pay levels. Now with the Quango-esque title "Head Of Values" he's soon involved with a similar group of headless deadbeats talking lots but saying little in another amusing spoof comedy.

The problem for me was the too-similar format to "2012" right down to each episode starting with him turning up to work and attending morning meetings although this time there was much less emphasis on his private life. The supporting cast includes the excruciatingly on-point media guru Siobhan "Sure, great" from the show before and a bunch of colleagues not markedly different again to those before. Therein lies the problem, with the show somewhat lacking in freshness with not only the characters but some of the plot devices seeming a bit second hand. I also think more could have been done to make use of the real-life BBC talent available apart from the amusing spat between Clare Balding and Carol Vorderman to see who gets to partner Alan Titchmarsh in a new reality show "The Tastiest Village in Britain".

There are amusing moments for sure particularly when Siobhan attempts to rebrand the BBC for the Apps market and Bonneville leads a good cast who play their quirky characters to the hilt. Nice to see Olivia Colman in a cameo role too. All told though, the law of diminishing returns appears to be in action here although somehow it wouldn't surprise me to see Ian Fletcher in future park his fold-down bike at the biggest talking-shop of all the House of Commons in an as yet unwritten sequel to his latest misadventures.

Not sure an American audience would get this show as it very definitely reflects British cultural and social situations.

This is a very well observed comedy. The setting for the programme is the BBC but it could be any big company. Ian Fletcher of 2012 fame joins the BBC as its head of values. Being the new boy in town he struggles with the entrenched working practices. Senior management float from meeting to meeting without making any decisions which they leave to their subordinates who were are too busy to attend.

The PR company who got it completely wrong in 2012 are invited back to keep us amused in W1A. It struck me after watching it that people under 30 have spent most of their lives with the internet and cable TV. Hence Perfect Curve's take on the BBC logo is probably closer to truth than fiction.

A few stories run through the programme and mostly serve to make Ian's life a nightmare. It would be interesting to watch this without the commentary and to see how events pan out without an introduction to every scene.

As to whether the publicly owned BBC should be making a programme satirising themselves: that is open to question. You have to imagine that Broadcasting House is not as badly appointed as portrayed. But, as noted above, anyone who has worked for a big company will raise a wry smile at some of the goings on.