When you get a tricky brief, get help - a lesson I learned early in
my career. Enter Joseph aged three-and-a-half and an expert on TV shows
such as Batman, Teletubbies and Johnny Bravo. ITV’s Ice Warriors is more
his line than my diet of football, documentaries and BBC 2/Channel 4
comedy.
It’s true this show is so closely related to Gladiators that good taste
dictates they should never marry, but the only real difference - the
frozen stuff - is a superb idea. Ice, as featured in Titanic, is good
fun and gives the show a hint of danger - the ever present thrill that
at any moment someone is going to come a major cropper. Ice Warriors
also manages to combine good sex appeal, in the pert form of Dani Behr,
with strangeness in the outlandishly costumed challengers, warriors and
beasts (wardrobe courtesy of Power Rangers).
A lot hangs on this show, particularly as the crucial ’hook’ slot in the
schedule means ITV gurus hope it will pull through a decent audience to
Blind Date and beyond. The heavy promotion of last week indicates how
important decent ratings will be for Warriors.
Although I felt the temptation to ’surf’ to the all-time top 100 album
chart show showing on Channel 4, I resisted.
Ice Warriors gets top marks for undemanding watchability on the strength
of its high-speed physical competition and fast-paced intros. The
programme is wrapped in snappy 7Up sponsorship credits which are spot on
as this show is going to appeal to the fizzy pop-swigging age group.
So, who won the first Ice Warriors? Who cares - not even Dani could
persuade me it mattered.
As the credits rolled, I quickly hopped to C4 in time to hear that Sgt
Pepper had been voted top album ever. Now that’s a TV event worth
winning!
PS: Joseph loved the ’funny skiers’ (!) but was strangely unmoved by
Dani Behr.
David Hipkiss, account director at Emap On Air, gets by with a little
help from his friends.
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