An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep2

What happened?

Karl was sent to experience the Tran Siberian Express; one of the longest train journeys on Earth on a train that contains the most opulent and fantastic standards of travelling alongside third-class levels. En route he is taken to experience zero-g effects at a Russian astronaut training facility, meets a man that can stick metal to his body and finishes up in a Chinese dwarf village.

Thoughts

Well, it was better than last week’s! I felt like Karl was given a little more licence and freedom and there was less pre-arranged stunts or events for him to contend with. Again, like the bungee jumping last week, the one genuinely amazing experience put in front of him (of going up in the plane to experience true weightlessness in zero g conditions) he elected to wangle his way out of.

I know it’s his character, and he is being absolutely true to himself in not going ahead and doing stuff he resolutely doesn’t want to do just because he’s on television, but at the same time it’s plain annoying to watch. I don’t find it funny. I don’t find myself on his side. I find myself disliking him for squandering these amazing opportunities.

I never felt like that watching the first series. Throughout that one I was always sympathetic to his plight but, for series 2, this idiot abroad is only really being idiotically resistant. So instead of him on the flight we had to settle for a bag of Revels being flung about in zero g in his stead. That’s not good entertainment.

More entertaining was Karl being made to wrestle for the honour of some Mongolian tribe. Not only did he look ridiculous but his fed-up reaction to it was terrific. The difference here was that he actually did get on with it. He stayed with the people (joining in with their chanting singing!) and practised the wrestling and then turned up and competed. As he said, there was no surprise in that he didn’t win but at least he gave it a go! So long as he does that the show works – it’s when he just turns his nose up, folds his arms and refuses to play does it get frustrating.

On the plus side there was a lot more of this episode that felt like the first series, and was better for it. His arrival in Moscow, with the most grumpy taxi driver ever, was amusing. But better was the look on his face when he went into the bar and spotted a bunch of guys sat at a table wearing only towels; just that glancing expression of disbelief to camera when he had passed them was priceless.

It was also interesting to see him aboard the Tran Siberian Express, particularly when we followed him being moved through the train, down the class levels, into the nightmarish conditions of third class and his bed that was little more than a shelf. It was utterly contrived but made for good viewing, seeing him perched up there hating every second of it.

Where this show actually succeeds is in being a kind of anti-travel show. Normally such shows will seek out new places and far off lands and show them in the best light. In the first series of An Idiot Abroad the strength and freshness of it was in having Karl turn up at the pyramids and remark about how scruffy the place was, or arrive at the Great Wall of China and fail to see the wonder in a wall that had been patched up and re-built in the modern age. This episode had touches of that down-to-earth, this is how it is viewpoint with the unflinching look at how crap the third class conditions were; this is where the show validates itself and was something last week’s jungle-based expedition completely lacked.

Maybe it’s just the joke is wearing thin. It’s not a concept that can be spun out for much longer. Maybe. I’m not completely down on it because there was plenty to chuckle at and enjoy. Like the dwarf village was fascinating and weird, and it was a nice touch to have Karl contact Warwick Davis and discuss it with him. That Karl was, for once, positive about something that Warwick could see nothing positive about was typical: Pilkington remains a man forever at odds with popular perception!

What was the best part?

For all the centrifugal machinery and dwarf villages, the best part of the show is Karl being Karl. As such the best part of the episode for me was, having met the man that could stick metal to him, Karl was asked what kind of power he would like to have. The following little monologue about how he’d be ‘bullshit man’, turning up and remarking “bullshit” wherever anyone was talking crap, was absolutely genius.

What do I think will happen next?

Next week Karl is to go swimming with sharks. If there hadn’t been some clips with him actually in the cage, in the water with the sharks, then I’d have worried it would be another case of him being presented with another experience he’d refuse to properly take on. I still doubt how much of it he will do, but we’ll see. The episode does have the potential to have more contrivance, though, so my hopes aren’t particularly raised.