Television series
Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe
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Charlie Brooker's caustic, brilliantly structured dissection of television itself. Thirty minutes of scathing analysis, absurdist sketches, and genuine discovery, mining obscure channels and mainstream rot with equal glee. It's for people who love TV but hate what it does to you—and who find that contradiction hilarious.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy sharp, cynical media criticism that takes apart the medium while being very funny about its absurd corners, like the gambling and shopping channels nobody admits watching.
Skip it if you want a steady story or characters to follow, since this is a pile of clips, opinions and sneers about the medium rather than anything resembling drama.
What it asks of you: Half-hour episodes that move briskly through clips and quips, so you need to stay alert for the jokes; it stays brisk and biting, with usually one softer segment per show.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Brass Eye1997
Chris Morris's deadpan deconstruction of media panic and manufactured outrage. Brooker learned from this: how to dismantle stupid systems by playing them absolutely straight, with surgical precision.
But Genuinely disturbing at moments—it's designed to make you uncomfortable. Some sketches haven't aged well, and the humour can feel alienating rather than warm.
Nathan for You2013
Nathan Fielding performs elaborate social experiments with Brooker's same mixture of deadpan analysis and genuine absurdism. You'll laugh at people, systems, and yourself for believing in them.
But Cringe comedy taken to extremes. Some segments drag, and the emotional manipulation of subjects—even willing ones—starts to feel ethically murky.
The IT Crowd2006
Graham Linehan's sitcom about the collision between tech culture and mainstream incomprehension. Brooker's spirit runs through it: the comedy is about systems failing, not people failing.
But Relies heavily on the same jokes repeated. Some episodes wear out their welcome fast, and the will-they-won't-they romantic subplot drags.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Ghostwatch1992
Brooker became famous dissecting television as a system. Ghostwatch is television demonstrating what it does when it forgets it's a system—panic, mass delusion, the medium consuming its own codes. It's the nightmare version of what Screenwipe describes as funny.
Ealing Productions' BBC one-off, broadcast as live television: a ghost hunt at a haunted house, with celebrities, mediums, and paranormal investigators. It's television eating itself in real time, the format becoming the story, chaos erupting when systems fail.
But Shot as a BBC One broadcast from 1992. It's deliberately slow, deliberately unsexy, and if you're watching it now, the pretence of liveness feels creaky. The horror is subtle—you have to buy the format for it to work.
More like this (6)
Absolutely Fabulous1992
Saunders and French's savage satire of media, fashion, and aspiration. Pre-dates Brooker but hits the same nerve: how entertainment industries sell inadequacy while pretending to liberation.
But The humour is dated in ways that matter—some cultural references have calcified, and the satirical targets sometimes blur into mean-spiritedness.
Dead Ringers2023
Audio comedy dissecting media and celebrity through impersonation and rapid-fire sketches. Brooker's visual equivalent, but working in pure sound and performance—teaches you to hear what you're listening to.
But Heavy on UK political and media figures you may not recognise. The in-jokes can fossilise fast, and some sketches collapse under their own referentiality.
Peep Show2003
Mitchell and Webb's sitcom about two ordinary men trapped in systems designed to humiliate them. The first-person perspective forces you into their inadequacy—Brooker's moral project in comedy form.
But Relentlessly bleak. If you watch it for laughs, you'll find them, but they're often uncomfortable. The characters' self-sabotage stops being funny around season six.
The Partridge Family1970
Coogan's Alan Partridge tries to make a podcast and stumbles through the gap between his self-image and reality. Like Screenwipe but intimate: the media landscape as personal catastrophe.
But Partridge has been around since 1992. If you're not already invested in the character, this feels like watching someone else's fanfiction about a joke you don't know.
Look Around You2002
Brooker and Fielding's brilliant parody of educational television, made with genuine technical precision. It's Screenwipe applied to a single genre—teaching you to see what you've been trained not to notice.
But Very niche. The humour relies entirely on recognising the format being parodied, so if you didn't grow up with BBC educational programmes, it mostly whooshes past.
The Day Today1994
Armando Iannucci's absurdist news satire, the ancestor of The Thick of It. Shows where Brooker's sensibility came from: comedy that attacks systems through exhausting detail and tonal whiplash.
But Aggressively dated in its references. The sketch format means tonal consistency isn't the goal, so you'll hit bits that just clang. Some of it feels like inside jokes about people long forgotten.
People
Cast
Charlie BrookerPresenter
Recommended by
Death to 2020, Cunk on Shakespeare, You Have Been Watching, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, The 11 O'Clock Show