Today’s first recording starts with the end credits of Casualty, an Eastenders trail and a Grownups trail.
Then, a one-off drama, Empathy. I don’t remember watching this at all, and it’s possible I never did. It doesn’t start well (for me) as it opens in prison, an environment I really don’t like. But after a very kinetic montage of the usual prison violence for the titles, our hero (?) Jimmy Collins (Stephen Moyer) is released. But he’d suddenly acquired some magic power, as he shakes hands with the guard letting him out, and sees a vision of a memory of the guard. He keeps bumping into people on the street and seeing things.
He visits his ex-wife to see his daughter, and finds she’s had a new baby with her new partner.
He visits an old friend, whose wife died four years ago, and he sees a vision of him crushing up pills to give to his wife.
He travels to Manchester to attend the funeral of his prison friend. He hits it off with the landlady of the B&B he stays in, enough to have sex. Curiously, he doesn’t have any visions with the sex.
On the way back, be bumps into a man at the station, and sees a vision of him killing a young girl. The man runs off, leaving his coat, and he sees more visions just touching the coat.
The police have found the body of a girl. It’s the one in the vision.
Jimmy sees a therapist. He’s sceptical about Jimmy’s visions, but he has one shaking his hand, which might convince him he’s not mad.
Jimmy sees the news report about the murdered girl, Lisa. He goes to the police, and naturally, they don’t believe the visions, and assume (not unreasonably) that Jimmy murdered the girl and is remorseful. His alibi, the owner of the B&B, lies and says he wasn’t there because her husband is present and she doesn’t want to admit she had a man staying over. So Jimmy’s arrested.
But there’s another victim, and CCTV confirms Jimmy was in Manchester, and also gets a picture of the man he grabbed the coat from. So he’s released, but they still don’t believe him.
He has his daughter over for a day, which seems to go well.
He has an MRI scan.
Jimmy goes to the place where the second girl was killed, and sees something that tells him the murderer wasn’t the young man whose coat he grabbed at Euston. He thinks it’s an older man. And when the police track down the Euston man, he says he picked up the coat from a skip. And he also has an alibi – he was in a police cell when the first victim was killed.
DS Jo Cavanagh thinks Jimmy might be able to help. He suggests seeing the dead girls might let him see what they saw. The first victim was running away with the killer. The second victim knew the killer. “She knew him and she couldn’t believe that he’d done this.”
We learn mire about his tragic back story – people in prison telling him they’re going to visit his wife when he gets out. This led to him killing one of the prisoners and crippling another.
He finally wins over DI Benson when he meets him visiting his son, in hospital on a ventilator. The son has “lockdown syndrome”. Jimmy sees the boy and tells Benson “He doesn’t blame you for the accident. He should have waited for you.” Of course, that’s exactly what a fake psychic would say.
They decide to let Jimmy visit the homes of the victims to see if they can find out anything else. He learns that the first victim was pregnant, with the killer’s baby. But the second victim doesn’t give him any sense of knowing anything. Then he shakes hands with her father and sees the murder – the man killed his own daughter, although her actual death was an accident when she was running away from him. But Benson doesn’t have any grounds to arrest him. If the other victim’s baby is his, they can verify that with DNA but they’d need to take a sample.
They call him in. “It’s more something you can give us. A DNA sample.” “You can’t possibly think that I had anything to do with this. That’s ridiculous.” “It’s for elimination purposes. So we can catch the man who did kill her.” There’s a long pause. “I’d like to talk to my lawyer first.” And their superior officer thinks it’s a ridiculous idea. “He’s the girl’s father. This is going to be all over the news by six o’clock.” and because the information came from Jimmy, he’s not going to pursue it. And he takes them off the case.
Jimmy can’t leave it, and visits the man at home. It gets rather heated as the man denies it, but Jimmy keeps at him until he finally breaks down and admits it. His self justification is rather gross given he’s a teacher. “I made one mistake! It was Lisa. She came onto me. Okay, I was flattered. Yes. I didn’t love her. It was not like you. It was like some… It was like some kind of a drug.”
When he finally admits it, Jimmy collapses. In hospital he’s shown the brain tumour he has. Maybe the visions will stop. But the film ends with him seeing a new vision when he touches DS Cavanagh, so I think they were hoping this might go to a series.
Media Centre Description: Supernatural drama. On his release from prison, Jimmy Collins suddenly starts to experience visions when he touches people, seeing what they see. As he struggles to rationalise this unnerving ability, he attempts to forge a relationship with his daughter Amy. When the life he is trying to build is threatened by a vision of a schoolgirl’s murder, Jimmy tries to convince the police that he is the key to solving the crime.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Saturday 4th August 2007 20:58
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Saturday 4th August 2007 21:00
After this, a trail for Heroes. And a new trail for Mountain with Griff Rhys Jones.
Then the recording stops with the start of the news, with Sophie Raworth, leading with a Foot & Mouth outbreak, more Maddie McCann news, and a Mars flight.
The next recording is from ITV4 and, hot on the heels of the start of Studio 60 it’s the OG, Saturday Night Live.
And just to add a bit more of the echoes, it opens with Lorne Michaels, the character that Judd Hirsch’s Wes Mendell was loosely meant to represent, introducing the cold open.
He introduces Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, as this is a tie-in with the film’s release. I don’t like Borat. I’m uncomfortable that too many people watch him and think “He talks a lot of sense” when he’s obscenely racist and misogynistic.
SNL definitely has eras with its casts, and this one, honestly, is pretty strong. There’s Fred Armisen
Will Forte I’m less familiar with.
Bill Hader is in loads of stuff, but I still can never place him.
No idea about Darrell Hammond.
Seth Meyers is a lot more familiar, as he’s now presenting one of the late night shows.
Amy Poehler, of course, has done loads of stuff since.
As has the great Maya Rudolph.
Andy Samberg likewise is huge, and even at the time, his stuff with the Lonely Island was prime internet material at the time. He looks so young.
Jason Sudeikis I hadn’t really heard of until Ted Lasso.
I see Kenan Thompson occasionally on Colbert.
Kristen Wiig also has done pretty well.
The guest host tonight is Hugh Laurie. And my daughter – my daughter – Asked me if he was the actor who played House, and was surprised he was English. How have I gone so terribly wrong? I’ve failed her so badly.
The first sketch is a perfect parody of Most Haunted. I’m surprised that travelled to the US. Hugh Laurie’s accent for Derek Acorah is pretty good.
The supporting cast look the part.
Maya Rudolph does a “someone singing the National Anthem badly” very well indeed.
Amy and Seth present Weekend Update. There’s a very early mention of Barack Obama. “Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said it is great that Senator Barack Obama is also thinking about running, adding, I think it’s great that anybody thinks about whatever they want to do in the future. It’s great. Great, great, great. So frickin’ great. Oh, I’m so screwed.” There’s also a story that “London has replaced New York City as the world’s undisputed financial capital.” That was nice while it lasted.
There’s music from Beck.
One of those sketches where the performers never look at each other, but stare off slightly to one side of the other.
A parody of Hardball that’s mostly lost on me as I don’t know the programme. Doesn#e Andy Samberg look old?
Hugh Laurie also sings a song.
Media Centre Description: Tonight’s edition of America’s longest-running variety show features guest stars Hugh Laurie and Sacha Baron Cohen, and Beck performs Nausea and Clap Hands.
Recorded from ITV4 on Sunday 5th August 2007 01:18
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Oh who am I kidding, it’s ITV3 in the middle of the night. It’s all sex chatlines. All of it. I can’t be bothered to make a list.