Famously described by one critic as "the perfect answer to lockdown blues: one episode of this and you will be out for the duration", Series One of thrupieceARTS' "A Disbuggery of Hitches" was not perhaps the raging success of 2020 that thrupiecetelevision - already disappointed by reactions to Series 104 its flagship drama Dorset Abbey [HERE] - had been hoping for. It came as something of a surprise, therefore, to read in today's edition of The Dorset Radio Times, that Series Two will air from this Sunday. All 28 episodes will be available immediately on thrupiecetelevision's triplayer - free trials for which are being offered on a surprisingly generous basis.
Based - very loosely indeed - on The Thrupiece-Sizemore Saga by Ernestina Pancake - a highly fictionalised account of the relationship between an ageless time-travelling Professor Brian Thrupiece and a young Shelley-Lulette Sizemore [3 volumes, The Threadbone Press, 2015-18], the big-budget television series is, say its creators, "a reimagining of one of history's most romantic couples set in a variety of eras and settings". [For the record Series One was set in present day Afpuddle to which the long-missing Professor had returned masquerading as a mobile wet-fish salesman; Series Two is set in Tudor Times, allowing more scope for Ms Sizemore's chest to reveal its full measure.]
Commissioning editor for the series, Yuleby Sackedsoon, says that Series One's failure with the public was almost certainly down to "their not liking it one little bit" but is hopeful that a long period of depressing news, isolation and despair in the intervening months will make viewers more open to "anything with colour and movement", adding that, "whilst I can't promise any more t*ts and a**e than in Series One, the present climate being what it is, there is far less action making it less likely that people will be alert enough to change channel once they realise they still don't like it".
Executives will be hoping that the faux Elizabethan backdrop together with the sprinkling of famous historical characters who most of the target demographic will never have heard of will redeem the programme in the public's eyes, though early trial screenings have not been encouraging in that regard. Of the 10 people who managed to stay awake for most of the first episode, 6 said they would prefer not to watch Episode 2, two said they would rather "eat their own feet" and one was immediately hospitalised and unable to respond even when slapped vigorously across both sets of cheeks. A tenth respondent, who asked not to be named, said it was "just what he'd been looking for". Asked to elaborate, he disclosed that he came from a two television household and that this was just the kind of material he sought out to "put the wife in a coma and let me get on with watching Babe Station HD on my 65" OLED"
"A Disbuggery of Hitches" Series 2 will be screened on thrupiecetelevision's thrupieceARTS Channel at 9pm on Sunday. No previews or extracts have been made available "to avoid premature disappointment".
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