Shooting Stars 2009 [DVD]

When at the peak of their greatness, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer unveiled their biggest weapon. After stand-up (Big Night Out) and sketch shows (The Smell Of and Bang-Bang), Vic and Bob's next output of their surreal humour was the celebrity quiz, Shooting Stars.

Debuting in the mid-nineties, Shooting Stars proved to be Vic and Bob's greatest hit, allowing all manner of terrific guests to appear and be caught right in the middle of their brilliant nonsense. Questions with the barmiest answers, the clips, and things like the `Dove From Above', "The Wonderful Car," and `Donald Cox the Sweaty Fox' induced such hilarities week-after-week. And of course, it breathed new life into the careers of Team Captains Ulrika Johnson, Mark Lamarr, Will Self, later team-regular Johnny Vegas and made a star out of Little Britain's own Matt Lucas as George Dawes, the baby with the scores.

The success of the one-night comeback special from Christmas 2008 gave rise to the 2009 series. And all six episodes have been released onto DVD for the first time ever. Vic and Bob are once again joined by Team B captain Ulrika and Matt Lucas reprising his role as George Dawes. Returning from the `one-night-only' special as Team A captain is the magnificent Jack Dee and making his debut for the new series is Team A regular, the previously unheard-of Angelos Epithemiou, a local burger-van owner.

So, how does the 2009 series compare to the glory days (1995 - 2002) of Shooting Stars? Well, it IS fair to say that the latest incarnation isn't on a par with the older series. There are times throughout when Vic and Bob try too hard to make their old magic work, sometimes relying on vulgarity or recycling stuff they've done before to help carry the episodes. Matt Lucas also falls into the same trap, recycling some of his old material as George Dawes (i.e. the baked potato song, his problems with soup and the telephone conversation).

But on the whole, the new series of Shooting Stars can be called a success. There are plenty of great laughs to be had still with Vic, Bob, George and Ulrika, such as Bob poking fun at Ulrika and her new boob-job, George's songs and him telling the scores, the final challenges, Vic's club-singing and leg-rubbing, the Jazz Pancake, the True-or-False, Clips and Quick-Fire rounds, Vic taking Liz McClarcknon out on a date and some terrific guest appearances from the likes of Paddy McGuiness, Gregg Wallace, Ricky Wilson, Lenny Henry, Paddy Considine, Noel Fielding and Kim Woodburn.

Certainly, Jack Dee provides some great stuff with his jokes, and Vic and Bob's attempts to cheer him up are absolutely priceless. But the best thing (hands-down) to come out of the new series is unquestionably Angelos Epithemiou, who has the audience in hysterics the moment he starts speaking. Despite initially being an unknown, Angelos plays his character with utter conviction, cracking nothing but superb jokes and amazing the audience with his literally flawless impressions and French skills. His attempts to woo Ulrika actually work and it's amazing how he can do most of this with such a straight face.

As for extras, the DVD has a lot of nice stuff, such as a behind-the-scenes featurette, outtakes, deleted sketches, Bob's celebrity guestbook and Matt Lucas and Angelos Epithemiou meeting with one another. There's some nice animated menus as well, along with the usual subtitles and typical BBC high-picture quality.

In spite of a few criticisms, the brand new series of Shooting Stars was nevertheless top-notch stuff, and a lot better than most other programming that plagued television in 2009. For fans, it's essential stuff and frankly, it's ABOUT TIME we had Shooting Stars released on DVD. Let's hope this means that we'll get compilation DVDS of the show's glory days somewhere down the road.

You either like it or hate it. Been watching this show since it began, you never know what's going on, yet you still find yourself rolling around hysterically in laughter. Brilliant.

If you showed this to America, they'd frown upon it.

OK, I'll admit that this latest series of "Shooting Stars" isn't as good as the previous series have been, there's been less moments of madness this time, but it is still the funniest show that's been on TV this year.

I'll admit that there are flaws - I don't think the show is partticularly well edited - but the jokes are funny, particularly the one where Vic keeps asking Bob to tell the same joke again and again and George's songs are a particular highlight.

At the moment, most comedy is based on stereotypes and crude material but "Shooting Stars" is just pure silliness, a random assortment of unrelated gags which are funny just because they are pointless, because of that it is leaps and bounds above much of the other comedies around at the moment like "Horne and Corden"