The Oxygen Channel
Nighty Night is this totally fucked British TV show which is apparently being shown on “The Oxygen Channel” (I got the screener!). Now, I have never watched “The Oxygen Channel,” nor do I pretend to even know what “The Oxygen Channel” is. To hazard a guess from the seven minutes of “Spike TV” I watched mistakenly one time, I’ll go ahead and assume it is a ton of really skinny, but not slutty, women all wearing white blouses and standing in an Ethan Allen or Ikea showroom. They are all between the ages of 29-31. There teeth are whiter than the Vera Wang wedding gown they have circled in the latest Barney’s catalog and they like three kinds of men; Ross, Chandler or Joey. Basically, a J-Crew catalog come alive. This is all speculation of course, because I have never watched a second of it. Still, I doubt that they EVER mention that women make $0.77 to men’s $1.00 for the same work. Me? I watch the NFL Network.
That said, Night Night has no business being on this type of station. Good for Oxygen for carrying it. Still, like the fact that Showtime carries Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!, I worry that a very, well, I can’t call it good… I worry that a very demented show is not being exposed to a large enough audience. Men: no matter who is broadcasting Nighty Night, watch it. Even if you feel a little, well, swish, for looking up Oxygen on the guide.
Here’s the deal with Nighty Night. Jill (Julia Davis) learns that her husband has cancer. So, the first thing she does is to go to a dating agency. Get it? That’s the joke. Er, I should say that is the overriding theme. This woman Jill is so tweaked that she is happy her husband is dying so she can start fucking around. More than that though, is the fact that Jill always does the most inappropriate thing possible in a given situation. Like when one of her workers (Jill owns a beauty salon) is late because of an asthma attack, Jill chastises her. Jill doesn’t believe in inhalers. I should probably mention here that Nighty Night is a BBC program and if you the driest of all British humor doesn’t interest you, I would stop reading this and go check out some porn (see above).
Now, what seals the show as being worth your time is Jill’s neighbors. Don is a doctor with a fetish for large-chested women and his wife Cathy has Multiple Sclerosis. Jill of course, completely falls for Don and befriends Cathy only so she can get into Don’s pants. Don, for his part, isn’t interested. He’s not in love with his wife per say, but his office assistant and the Reverend’s double D bride will suffice. So, given that mix, all sorts of fucked up things ensue. Such as;
- Jill decides the best way to seduce Don is to throw a party and invite only him. Don explains that Cathy has decided to come, but is resting so she’ll have the strength to come to the “party.” Jill announces to her staff that she is taking the day off to do her “Christian work,” but in reality drags Cathy all over town in an effort to tire the poor woman out. Jill accomplishes this by dropping Cathy in her wheel chair off at the bottom of a hill. Every Jill decides to go somewhere new to shop or eat, she drives while Cathy is forced to push herself around. Brutal.
- Cathy somehow manages to come to the party anyway. Jill knows Cathy is a vegetarian so she cooks only meat dishes. Worse, after dinner Jill decides to play “pass the balloon,” with a long, pink party balloon. Cathy of course is stuck in her chair and she watches helplessly as Jill puts the balloon between her legs and bends over for Don to receive the pass.
- One morning, Jill goes jogging on Don and Cathy’s driveway in black lingerie and heels. Because it’s more, “aerodynamic.”
- In order to garner sympathy, Jill tells are her friends and associates (including the reverend) that her husband Terry has died.
- Terry is actually starting to do better. The doctor tells Jill that Terry’s tumor–which was the size of an orange–is not the size of a tangerine. Jill tells Terry it is in fact the size of a pineapple.
And on and on and on like that Nighty Night goes. A bit one note, sure. But that note is so dark, so vile, so harsh, so reprehensible that you simply must keep watching to see what the crazy-bitch is going to pull next. Calling the show “one note” is perhaps a bit unfair. There are some other funny things going on besides Jill’s cruel solipsism. Like when Cathy is lying on Don’s stomach and she asks him if he wants a blowjob. Don asks her if her neck is strong enough. The next scene is this totally uncomfortable shot of Don handing Cathy a neck brace. Also, there is this dude who describes his personality as “Scottish.” Jill and him go on a date and he has these really severe facial ticks. Which normally I wouldn’t find funny, but then he tries on a bondage mask and still has the fucking facial ticks!
More like a never ending train-wreck than an actual sitcom, Nighty Night has no remorse, no tact and no redeeming qualities, save for the blackest of humor. I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Oxygen Channel, indeed.