Save Me……from empty-headed TV nonsense

Spanish TV is an enigma. It produces some of the most intelligent, insightful, funny, satirical and challenging programmes I’ve ever come across. But as Isaac Newton so aptly put it: “For every action there is an equal and opposition reaction.” And so it was therefore inevitable that Spanish TV would also produce programmes such as “Salvame”.

The utter pointlessness of “Salvame” – translation “Save Me” – is so huge it produces it’s own gravitational field that sucks in other crap shows as well. The Spanish affectionately refer to such programmes as “telebasura”, in other words “rubbish TV”.

“Salvame” has a special place in my heart. I’ve had hours of therapy in an attempt to remove it, but as yet, no success. In fact, it is a concept so burned into my soul that it forms the very name of this blog. It’s the TV equivalent of Guantanamo Bay – it’s horrific torture that should be outlawed, but too many stupid people think it’s necessary and revealing.

Let me explain. “Salvame” is essentially a topical debate programme – a panel of experts in front of a live studio audience. It’s on for four hours (yes, four hours!!) every weekday on a channel called Telecinco. The topics of debate include the threat of terrorism, unemployment, green issues……hah! No they don’t. The topics of debate include which minor celebrity is shagging who and why, whether another bland, pointless celebrity has chosen the right handbag, and if yet another worthless celeb’s shit stinks or not. Ok, I made the last one up, but frankly I’m convinced it’ll be the subject of a week-long special before long.

The “Salvame” panel is made up of pointless Z-list “celebrities” (including an ex-Big Brother housemate, a celebrity agent, the ex-wife of a former professional tennis player and another ex-partner of a famous bullfighter) whose only contribution to society is that they have a tan, a big gob, an opinion and can shout a lot. (For legal purposes, I should point out at this juncture that this is, of course, my honestly-held opinion and fair comment. It really is my honestly-held opinion, it is that horrific.)

The debate basically takes the form of all the panel members shouting at each other at the same time with the audience clapping when it gets particularly aggressive. Occasionally the presenter and “chairman” Jorge Javier Vazquez – a sort of Graham Norton-type character, only without the humour and with no self-awareness of just how ironic his existence is - will interject with a “new” twist in the saga, and the shouting kicks off again, interspersed with regular panellist storm-offs and even storm-ons (when panellists conveniently arrive in the studio “late” to confront the others).

At the centre of many of these “debates” is panel member Belen Esteban, former partner of now-retired famous bullfighter Jesulin de Ubrigue. When they were together, they were all over the gossip magazines. Since their acrimonious split, Esteban has made a living from the glare of the paparazzi’s cameras. She is famous only for being famous and nearly every aspect of her pointless existence is played out in front of the cameras. Esteban is an aggressive, loud, opinionated, blond, bulging-eyed plastic surgery catalogue on legs, with a gob like a fog horn. She makes Jade Goody – God rest her soul – sound like Audrey Hepburn.

“Salvame” desperately wants to be taken seriously. But it’s so vacuous, it would float away if it wasn’t weighed down by the gross egos it parades over the airwaves every afternoon.

Oh, and if after watching that, you still crave more empty, fatuous, soul-crushing celebrity tedium, Telecinco will happily serve up “Salvame Deluxe”, a even longer – four and-a-half hours!! - weekly analysis of the same crap they’ve been talking about already. Then there’s “Vuelveme Loca” (“Drive me Crazy”),  which does pretty much the same thing, only with different presenters, then there’s “Enemigos Intimos” (“Intimate Enemies”), which squares up celebrities to shout at each other over some witless disagreement they’ve had. Finally, there’s “La Noria” (“The Big Wheel”), which basically does the same as the rest, only on Saturday nights, again for more than four hours!

You think Channel Five in the UK is bad. Its Spanish namesake takes the Oscar for crap TV.