Channel 4 boots up a new series of ambient voyeurism with the second series of The Family. This time we’re told we’re breaking new ground, as this will be the first experiment of its kind to feature a British Asian family as its centerpiece.
And it’s quite a family. Channel 4 have done well to pick this extended pack of Grewals, all of whom have compelling back stories, irritating habits and generally likable personalities. Sarbjit and Arvinder, respectfully the matriarch and patriarch of the piece, have the kind of relationship only decades of marriage can generate. Wandering around in a semi-permanent haze of exhaustion, they indulge in apparently spiteful bickering sessions where nothing is off limits, from hair-loss to obesity, but from which they always emerge smiling and seemingly unburdened. It’s fun to watch them at each others neck, truth be told.
Aside from watching these two bark at each other, storylines effectively run around the activities of their children and their partners - which is useful because, though it’s funny, fifty minutes of Sarbjit and Arvinder squabbling might be a bit much. Last night’s episode, for example, focused on Kaki and her husband Jeet as they came into conflict over his abandoned Bollywood career. But, to be honest, the appeal of the show is less to do with the characters’ life stories and more to do with the slow pace and the paucity of events.
What keeps me watching actually has little to do with the goings-on on screen. It’s the simple experience of watching something so familiar – a family home – through the eyes of a voyeur. It doesn’t seem right, somehow, but it’s compelling – viewing from a third person perspective – and it leaves you feeling a little bit alienated and just a little bit weird.
It’s the out-of-body weirdness that traps the viewer. Long periods of silence in which we simply watch a normal person rifling through a chest of drawers or patting a dog induce a kind of audience catatonia. It’s like subtle hypnosis, where you’re secretly beaten into submission by the relentless and harmless tedium onscreen. And, as a result, these long periods of nothingness cause any suddenly occurring event to instantly become high drama. This was best demonstrated in the last series where the highpoint of one episode was a cat falling off a chair.
There’re two dogs in the current family set up. Let’s hope one of them topples off a stool some point next week.
82 Comments
Totally agree. It’s weirdly compulsive and calming. I liked the bit in the last series where there was brother/sister squabbling that suddenly went wrong when someone hurt themselves, and that moment of shock turning to anger tinged with regret and sorrow but both still on the defensive was bloody good telly. It’s just so REAL, man! (Maybe I only enjoyed it cos I don’t have any siblings so that’s never happened to me)
Jesus, I have major comment deja vu. I’m sure I’ve written that before.
IT’S STILL MORNING JUST ABOUT!
No-one in? Oh OK then…
*skulks off back to work*
Hello!
I think it’s busy week. Next week we should be firing on two posts a day at least… and a lot more traffic. Nothing to do with those XBox ads, no no no….
The Guardian called it ‘knee-huggingly’ lovely, or something, either way the phrase ‘knee-huggingly’ appeared.
I was having a plop at the time of reading it and I yelled so hard in horror extra poo came out.
Hello Swines! I don’t understand what you just said, but thank you for saying it! Do the XBox ads bring more people here, or…
*doesn’t understand*
*goes back to work down t’mines of old media*
“Knee-huggingly”?!?! When did the Guardian become Meg Ryan in any 90s romantic comedy?
It’s fucking disgusting isn’t it.
*deliberately shits self*
*hugs knees*
Isn’t knee-hugging what traumatised people do?
Only when combined with rocking and low groaning.
Simple knee-hugging is what women in big jumpers in Tampax adverts do to signify their complete comfort with the disgusting functions of their own bodies.
‘Simple knee-hugging is what women in big jumpers in Tampax adverts do to signify their complete comfort with the disgusting functions of their own bodies.’
That was so completely spot-on I could actually weep
It’s oh so quiet…
*walks around on tip toes like Byork in that viddy*
…just us 3
Shall we watch a DVD?
*produces Bridget Jones*
*whips out pirated pile of DVDs*
Ok, we’ll start with BJones then move on to Seymour Butts Anal Adventure, followed by Baby Got Back, Shaved then the finale, 2 Girls One Kitten.
well … I was watching a very interesting documentary about art deco on the Orient Express. Turns out that the term art deco was not coined until 1967 and if you want to impress folks you might describe it as domestic cubism. Just pray they don’t ask any follow up questions.
For the avoidance of doubt, I was in my house. Not on the orient express.
Did this documentary feature a fat asian man arguing comically with his fat wife as a half-blind, curious Yorkshire Terrier looks on?
If not, I’m afraid you wasted your time.
I’ve heard it’s murder, that Orient Express.*
*may have heard wrong
When shall we have this jolly oop north SH…
*spills a few beans*
I dunno Nick – email me before you spuff any more pulses.
To paraphrase Meatloaf:
“I don’t know who Piqued is, but he’s a real dead ringer for a piss-spattered urinal with a big coil of man egg in it.”
You’ve started early NC, hungover?
Can you coil an egg?
Broken simile!
Swineshead – You can a man egg. Because that’s a turd.
Piqued – Nope. Unlike you, I don’t drink every day.
I wasn’t suggesting you drank everyday, just yesterday, heavily
‘Fraid not, Piqued. I was working from 5:50 a.m. yesterday, finished at 7:00 p.m., watched some telly, went to bed and then back at it at 6:00 a.m. this morning.
I was saying you were a urinal covered in all piss and big curly shits because that’s what I’ve heard you are.
DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER!
Lap dancing?
Drawing cartoons.
Well, if you’d not left everything until the last minute you’d have saved yourself the fucking shit temper, surely?
I’m so excited that, according to the ad that’s sometimes up there ^^^, people can now get Twitter on their XBox.
That’s a really big step forward for the human race. I’m so proud to be alive during this historic era.
I predict Jimmy White to win IACGMOOH
Daughter 2 was amazed she could get Facebook on her WII
Piqued – I’m in a fine temper, thanks. I’m merely passing on what I’ve heard, that’s all.
You went and shot the messenger anyway, you wretch.
@Pilchard i’M shitting blud affter a botched opration LMFAO!!!
Daughter 2 was amazed she could get Facebook on her WII
Shame she can’t get anything that amounts to a decent game.
And no, Dogz Petz Groomy Horzez Party Babiez III doesn’t count.
Naps, pleased I could bring a smile to your arse.
‘I’m merely passing on what I’ve heard, that’s all.’
You sound like granny talking about her neighbour who never went short of stocking during the blitz
Dogz IS a game when you’re a 13 year old girl..and that bloody cooking one..
‘Dogz IS a game when you’re a 13 year old girl’
What level you on?
Dammit. I am away for a couple of hours and I missed the pirated pr0n. I was listening to the *dirty* podcast on the way into the office, though, and it made me do a big old laughy-pops just as I was walking past a gang of scary yoovs in Westfield. They all glared at me. I’m a bit scared now. They might be waiting outside.
It’s not, Nick. Dogz (or Horzez or Party Petz Babeez) is a poor-quality computer rendering of a puppy you can shake a controller at to pretend you’re stroking it. Games are slightly more advanced than that, as you may have heard in the media recently.
And what the fuck’s a thirteen year old playing that for anyway? By that age, I was much more interested in tits, ass and smoking, not games designed for four year olds.
‘And what the fuck’s a thirteen year old playing that for anyway?’
‘You can shake a controller at to pretend you’re stroking it.’
No idea
Girls are made up different Naps, not so much a game more and “experience”
I don’t make the rules (if there are any)
‘I don’t make the rules’
Might be an idea, Nick, a simple curfew at least
She gets bored after a while to be honest….then plays that farm game on facebook.
Hello there. Are you still looking for comments or are you ok now?
Experience, my eye. Notice the 4+ sign on the box? That’s to tell you it’s suitable for small children, so what a teenager’s doing playing it, fuck knows. I’d buy her Okami if I were you. Or Super Mario Galaxy.
Okami! Agreed! And Katamari Damacy! But then! She is a girl. Maybe you should try to get her into Call of Duty. It’d help with the history homework.
Do kids still have homework these days?
JRME – Kids don’t have homework these days, no. Since September 2008, no child has been allowed to leave their own home / prison without 24 hour parental supervision. It’s too dangerous to leave them at school where harm may come to them, see?
Fucking hell, I have had to do actual work for the last 2 days. And I have a tonne more to do in the coming weeks. I may have to limit myself the the FQ. This is UNFAIR.
AND i’ve got to go to bloody denmark.
Harrumph.
Good afternoon all.
Yeah, I thought it was something along those lines, Naps. Luckily, I captured a rogue child in August, and so I still have something to bop on the nose and cuff round the ear and make scrump at will.
JRME are you fagin?
AND i’ve got to go to bloody denmark.
That’s outrageous, Mel! And to think those fucking bin men moan they’ve got it tough!
JRME – Scrumping? UP A TREE?
A TREE THEY COULD FALL OUT OF AND GRAZE THEIR KNEES?
MONSTER!
yes, but i will be inside a bloody conference centre listening to people from the UN failing to reach an agreement. I tried to tell them my time would be much better spent on WWM, but they wouldn’t listen.
And Copenhagen is REALLY expensive. 5E for a coffee, FFS
Heard of a Thermos flask, Mel?
No Nappers. What is that?
Hello Mel! No, I’m not. I tend to set them on complicated phishing/hacking missions rather than picking pockets. Got to keep them interested.
Naps, with the psychological torture they endure on a daily basis, the grazed knees actually act as a physical conduit for their internal pain. See? I am caring.
It’s a device for storing hot beverages, Mel. Buy one and you can beat the Danish coffee vendors at their own game.
Do they do them in really big? then I could sell coffe for 4.99E and make a killing.
Is it a blisteringly good FQ tomorrow to help commiserate for this new and rather disturbing predicament? Actually doing work at the job for which I am paid. Outrageous.
OUTRAGEOUS!
Afternoon. Or is it early evening?
One for the clock-watchers there…
I think I’ve come up with a corker for tomorrow’s FQ, Mel. Of course, all hinges on whether Pilchard’s got work on or not.
He’s just done a big old splurge on Twitter, but I’m sure he’ll be refuelled before tomorrow.
Goody. I’m facing having to watch the whole of Merlin series 1 tomorrow, so I will need you all.
I am not really clear what the quality of the FQ has to do with the availability pilchard, but I look forward to it.
Now, do you have a plan to get me out of Copenhagen?
Swines – it is definitley evening for me. I just didn’t wish to confuse people. I have seen how muddled they get when the clock goes back, but the comment clock doesn’t…
I had no idea they’d gone to such lengths to hammer a joke into the ground.
Also, no David Dimbleby on the QT tonight. Poor bloke.
If I had a complaint to make to that insurance company and wanted to get in touch with them, I’d be spitting blood over that bloody meerkat by now.
hullo!
oh.
hmmm. westfield, JRME? i am ‘from’ near there. obv not really cause i’m from Austraya but still. i’ve probably looked witheringly at you at some point, i do that as a matter of course when traversing she bu.
ok i’m off. i’ve been working well hard these last two days and fucking well have to again tomorrow. it’s not cricket.
bye.
Me too breeks. Not cricket at all.
Bye.
Late one! Breeks, I work near BBC innit. Used to live in Chiswick too so had to waltz through da green bi-daily. You may well have looked withering at me. I’m usually chuckling at something iPod-y so I fit in quite well with the general ambience of mentals round there.
May I ask you something, should you ever read this? What is your opinion of the Defectors’ Weld?
hello jrme.
i just saw this.
defectors weld is shit. end.
oh and ps: i just moved out of chiswick. it is well nice but a bit homogenous. ‘cept for rageh omaar whom i lived opposite of.*
*deliberately bad grammar.
Breeks: you’re a person with infinite taste and wisdom. The Defectors is a place where everything wrong about pubs is concentrated into one hateful building. Last Friday my mates (5 men, 6 women, all gorgeous media types) were not allowed in at 11pm “cos they didn’t have enough women”. RAGE CAGE.
I never bloody saw Omaar! Or Dara O Braiaiaiaian, or Moira Stewart, Mark Lamarr, Matthew Kelly, Al Murray, Rula Lenska, or anyone else my Chiswick homies saw all the hell-ass time. I did see Robert Plant in the 14th Starbucks. I moved out cos of the prams. And no Uniqlo.
i loved the high street, i would’ve happily lived on it had there been more loo facilities but then i realised that the people of chiswick, the people who REALLY belong there, don’t ever poo.
i moved out cause i can’t afford a 1-bed on my own there, not without selling a kidney and even then it’d only cover 6 months rent. i’m now brook greening which in essence is shepherds bush with a nicer postcode.
Tell me abaat it. We tried to look at buying round there and got laughed all the way into crappy newbuild shoeboxes in Brentford. I’ve slunk south of the river now. Much more my level. I’ve got two whole notKFCs within 5 minutes of my front door!
mr breeks lives in SW london. i venture over occasionally. i fear my future is there but until then i cling to the 4-tube-stations-within-spitting-distance beauty of a travel hub.
I’m in SW! Earlsfield. Quite spooky. I’m usually to be found on the Clapham-Shepbush train, innit. I was scared about the whole no-tube, just overground thing, but it’s actually aces. Far quicker to get into town and no sweltering in awful heat and no horror blacksnot. And Vauxhall if you’re really craving it. Come to the SW! *beckons creepily*
i won’t go to the SW, sorry. clapham junction at peak hour? are you serious?
mr breeks is in that bit between barnes and putney. i call it butney. i’m quite funny. also his next door neighbour is simon le bon.
Oh, you mean Parnes? Very posh. You seem to attract good neighbour action. I don’t think there’s anyone famous in Earlsfield apart from Jamie T and I don’t know who he is. I once flung myself at Charlie Brooker on that CJ-SB train but that was before I knew it was him.
not posh at all but a boots moved into the row of shops so i guess that shot house prices up. all he needs now is a tesco local.
i was on charlie brooker’s screenwipe once, vox popped on the goldhawk road. i was a twat. but i feel really close to him now. like he’s my boyfriend or something. you know.
nikki chapman from popstars lived on my old st in chiswick. and i used to see nigel havers at the gym. he’s posh and privileged.
I presume by gym you don’t mean my old one, the Brentford Fountain leisure centre, which was entirely populated by elderly people on NHS exercise prescriptions doddering on treadmills at 0.5 mph, and skint muscle marys. Not really Nige’s scene.
See my stepmum used to know Nikki Chapman when she was just a receptionist at MCA or something! What street was it? You can tell me if you don’t live there any more. I won’t come and beat you up for nicking my boyfriend Brooker off me.
homefield road, it was. of course it’s now incinerated itself in grief at my departure.
not the brentford fountain, no. i feel i missed out, there.
saturday nights in get boring at about half-9.
You’re right there. I’ve spent the past three hours in a coma. Now I’m watching a festival of terrible Irish accents on some shit film on Virgin 1. On balance, I should have left the house.