Thanks Ants. Thants.

I've just seen Look Around You 2 on DVD. It's ok, in fact often it's appallingly funny. But I'm really not sure what it's for. Is it a Pythonesque surrealist fantasy? Is it a satire of 70s science shows (people who say it's 80s have no idea what they're talking about)? Is it just a parody of television (it seems acutely aware of modern piss-poor factual tv)?

I prefer to think it's a parody. Why? Because it is obviously set up as one. But for a parody, it pulls almost all its punches. There are no political references at all. There are very few cultural references that could place it in its design-inspired environment (say, 1973-1981) except for, say, the item on Cobbles, which is obviously AIDS but done in rather poor taste. The title sequence and many of the effects act against the parody, horribly (as if the programme makers were worried we would really think it were real - For ****'s sake!). It just seems as if the producers got cold feet on the idea of the parody. For me though, the glaring own goal is the Ros Lamb feature in "sport". There is a golden opportunity there for an item like this: "Ros Lamb won this year's 400 000 metres with the aid of a new development in running science. It's called an "anabolic steroid" and it threatens to revolutionise athletics...". Instead of which we get a sub- Python sketch of an athlete speaking funny and getting smaller. Even the majestic Peter Serafinowicz fails to convince as a science show host. Though his voice work is amazing. Is that a Peter Donaldson I hear before the opening titles? Having said that, Robert Popper is clearly Howard Stableford, even down to the slightly nasal, ever so slightly smug voice.

So maybe it is surrealist fantasy after all. I think it does better as this, even if the best jokes are the least weird. The best jokes of all are the ones I thought were rubbish on first viewing. Thanks Eddie. Theddie. Thanks ants. Thants. And so on. I can't explain why I now think this is great. Because it is crap, probably. Because it is Chris Morris-lite, maybe.

It's worth watching, and worth a laugh. But it's too lame for satire, which is a shame, as we are desperately short of real satire.