It’s hard to remember a show that was as highly anticipated by a certain demographic as Cast Away. Thanks to the media’s careful reporting of the details, the show turned out to be nothing more than a sad, decrepit “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” canceled and stuffed-up Phillip Schofield to a packed house. I promised not. On a deserted island.
If the hype is to be believed, the show, a three-part special in which Scofield films himself stranded on a remote island for 10 days, is all about Scofield, who has nothing, only to come forward and burn everything down. You would think it would be a thing. Otherwise you lose. But while that may still come true, a hot reel from the show shows Schofield sporting wild eyes and a stubble, declaring himself “thrown under the bus.” Although it appears twice, the truth is that the opening episode feels like two completely different shows in one.
As you may recall, the last time we saw Schofield was shortly after he left This Morning after being accused of having an affair with a showrunner. Schofield lost his job, This Morning was threatened with its downfall, and ITV faced a parliamentary inquiry into its duty of care to its staff. In a series of interviews in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, Schofield seemed completely hounded. That was one year and three months ago.
And now he’s here, building what could be the first buds of a return to television, or perhaps the harbinger of the undisputed death of his career. Honestly, at this point it’s hard to predict what direction it will go.
Because, regardless of what you think of this guy, the part where he plays out the actual premise of the show, which is that he tries to challenge the Go-Pro for sustenance by boiling limpets himself on a hellishly tanned island. That’s because I have to reluctantly admit that part of me is there. interesting. Decades of TV shows have taught Schofield how to effectively communicate whatever it is he’s doing. So the parts where he actually protects himself, like searching for water or chasing crabs in the forest, work very well. He’s candid, funny, and modest about his lack of survival instincts. During these sequences, it’s almost as if nothing happened.
But (and this is the big one) a man can never help himself. It’s one thing to protect yourself in the middle of nowhere, it’s quite another to do it without acting like the most bitter man ever on the planet. And don’t get me wrong, Scofield is an incredibly bitter man. Even before he left home, he compared Cast Away to I’m a Celebrity, saying, “I wouldn’t be on that show because there’s just a few channels and some people don’t work.” “Let’s do it,” he muttered darkly.
I was so anticipating that I was drooling…Philip Schofield in “Cast Away.” Photo: Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited/PA
Even a farewell meal with his family turns into a nuisance, as he mockingly asks his daughter, “Are you okay?” Holly Willoughby addressed This Morning viewers after the scandal with similar spurious concerns. He also repeatedly mentions that some people would want him to stay on the island forever, or even die on the island, and that is his self-aggrandizing victim. It is the enormity of consciousness.
Admittedly, a lot of this is due to the way the episode is structured. Most of Schofield’s complaints were made during preliminary interviews, which were chopped up and spread over an hour, giving the impression that he was far more preoccupied with the state of his career.
However, even though the islands seem happy just doing the work at hand, they are not immune to ugly moments of self-mythologization. In one video diary, she tearfully recalls how a large, tattooed man hugged her and reassured her, “They’re all shit.” Moments like this really make me wonder if Schofield actually sees himself as a folk hero and not a guy who got fired for having an inappropriate relationship at work. Masu.
He also falls prey to the classic curse of cancellation. “If it gets cancelled, I’m as good as dead,” he tweets, which would be a fair sentiment if we weren’t literally saying it right now, all together, during a prime-time broadcast on a British terrestrial television channel. Dew. Just a little awareness of his situation would go a long way.
The effect of all this is a lingering sense that Phillip Schofield has become his own worst enemy. When a show is about literal survival, it’s as close to great as it gets. But if this show is just serving as an opportunity for Scofield to selfishly lick his wounds about the state of his career, which is a lot, then you’ve lost all respect for him. lose.
It’s worth pointing out again that Channel 5 wants you to believe that the really important part, the Colonel Kurtz moment where Schofield burns his legacy into the ground, is all in the next two episodes. That’s what it means. But honestly, who has time? Sadly, the truth is that most people care less about Phillip Schofield’s career than they would like.
Cast Away was broadcast on Channel 5.
