Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains

Shortly before the segment on Ghostwatch during the most recent episode of How TV Ruined Your Life , Charlie Brooker briefly mentioned Alternative 3 - a show with a similar premise which centered on the discovery of a government secret that could make or break the future of humanity. As a kind of spiritual precursor to the hugely enjoyable National Séance 2010 , coming April 1st 2011 will be the Alternative 3 Live Tweet Screening ! It's almost exactly the same setup as before - we'll be starting our copies of Alternative 3 at precisely the same time and ask you to do the same and tweet about what you're seeing on Twitter - although for this particular event, the date will reflect Alternative 3's originally planned broadcast rather than its actual transmission (the show was intended to be shown on April 1st 1977, but was pushed back to June 20th of the same year). The time to start your personal recording will be 21:00 sharp. A fitting date, I think you'l...

Last night, during the concluding episode of critic/cultural commentator Charlie Brooker's absorbing BBC series, How TV Ruined Your Life (specifically, at the 13:30 minute mark), the show took a unexpectedly spooky turn... Whilst on the subject of television's seemingly inherent ability to subjugate audiences' perceptions by blurring the lines between fact and fiction, we the audience were treated to a fleeting/erudite hark back to everyone's favourite Hallowe'en horror show. Most remarkable, and not to mention genuinely heartening to behold, was the overwhelmingly positive response that this little trip down (repressed) memory lane seemed to generate at near lightning-speed via The Online Voice Of The People™, Twitter - with news coming through at one point that the word 'Ghostwatch' had even taken on the intermittently distinguished title of Trending Topic. It's also worth noting how thoroughly encouraging it was to see even just a couple of m...