The show, which initially was an exploration of longevity and, of course, should be fun, became even more relevant and important for me, even more poignant than I ever thought it would be. This isn’t what you expected when you started? I was like, “Am I supposed to be worried? Is this concerning?” I wish I'd had a more intense follow-up with it because I didn't really know what to think. I had a bunch of questions, but no one answered them. They were like, “What was that about?” And I told them, and then they had a bunch of questions. I hung up the phone and my parents were there, at the time. It was a pretty brief conversation, all things considered. We need to have an off-side conversation and see if he even wants this to be in the show.” It was pretty shocking because he called me up and he told me. And Peter Attia, who is the longevity doctor in that episode, and overseeing a lot of the show, called Darren and said, “I don't want to tell him this on camera. The real lesson, about society’s fetishisation of biological, nuclear families comes via a visit to the twins’ home, where Granny is kept alive on a drip, endless home videos play, the trio are served thick, glutinous tea (“a family recipe”) and a tree growing through the house thrives on the blood of strangers.Chris Hemsworth: Yeah, they took all my bloodwork and did a bunch of tests and the plan was to on-camera tell me all the results and then talk about how you can improve this and that. “Not really for me.”) isn’t wholly terrifying.Įlsewhere the three get a lesson on what constitutes a family via a pair of puppet twins Lily and Todney – his name a perfect encapsulation of the series’ entire set-at-a-small-but-wholly-unsettling-angle-to-reality aesthetic. Which is not to say the pink claymation figure constantly melting and reforming in order to try to take the place of dead Duck (don’t worry, it’s an administrative error – he’s back, unfazed, next week. Episode two is about death and is possibly the weakest of the series, perhaps because it’s inescapably creepy even when real children’s shows try to tackle this subject and so some necessary tension is lost. The notional lesson about the value of hard work, sparked by a talking briefcase, is swiftly upended as they are subsumed into the mindless workings of a factory (Peterson’s and Sons and Friends Bits & Parts Ltd – whose bits get recycled into parts and back again) and adult viewers are reminded of why they drink to forget. It repays a rewatch … Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. I particularly enjoyed catching “Keep an eye on grease fires” written on the whiteboard as part of the trio’s domestic rota. Like The Simpsons, it repays a rewatch with a finger poised above the pause button. The episodes are longer but the characters – never given names, but known to fans as Red Guy, Yellow Guy and Duck (a man in a furry suit and string mop head, plus two puppets, respectively) – the lovingly detailed felt props, the claustrophobia, the growing threat of an existential crisis with every passing minute? They are all as delightfully, thoroughly, relentlessly present as ever. The monstrous nature of time stands revealed by a singing, dancing and eventually screaming clock. A paean to creativity rapidly descends into an offal-stuffed nightmare. The six episodes – lasting a few minutes each – took the happy learning vibe of children’s television and twisted it into something so creepy you could feel it moving under your skin long after the cheery voices had faded into nothingness. It is the gently, gradually but relentlessly nightmarish vision of Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, who met as fine arts students at university and, when stuck in post-grad jobs they hated, teamed up with actor/writer Baker Terry and put their artistic skills to use creating a DIY web series that, between 20, became a crowdfunded hit. D on’t Hug Me I’m Scared (All 4/Channel 4) looks like Sesame Street and plays like David Lynch.
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