2013 Wipe

Charlie Brooker takes a look back at the year that was 2013, a year where almost nothing happened – apart from meteorites hitting Earth, tornadoes destroying towns, Thatcher dying, UKIP being racist, Baby Prince George being born, Mandella dying, Snowden leaking, Andy Murray winning Wimbledon and, oh, a TV show where famous people dressed up as other famous people to sing their songs. So really not too much.

Those that have seen anything with Charlie Brooker in it will know that he tends to be very acerbic and funny at the same time, with a great turn of phrase that can usually hit his target with very cruel observations. His end of year show gives him no end of material and, although some of what he has included is odd, generally the choices are good. The nature of his show does mean he covers media events as well as news events but I was surprised he spent as long on UKIP and Miley Cyrus as he did when compared to Mandella or Snowden, but still the material mostly works. The delivery is very good as always, with so many great lines. Brooker is great as ever but his support yet again risks stealing it from him.

Doug Stanhope is not given as much time this year and really only has one segment – but it is worth it as I had never heard that he had set up a fund to support the woman in Oklahoma who had refused to thank God for the sake of a media sound bite. That was hilarious – and he did it just to be a prick, which made it all the better.

For me the most cheering thing was probably the bits that I had never seen before; so for example I was happy that I had managed to unplug myself sufficiently that I had never even heard of "Your Face Sounds Familiar" far less seen any of it – ditto that dogging documentary. Campbell and Morgan have two sections where they do their "normal people talking heads" thing and do it really well. Both play their characters really well and I think their review of Doctor Who was my favorite – especially where they praise the big twist that it was on ITV (they were actually talking about Broadchurch).

Overall another very funny hour which covers a lot that is depressing for one reason or another, but does so in a way that is cutting and very funny.