The last week Marcel & Gijs entered. Monday night was episode 16, four more to go and that’s it schluss with their inroads into the commercial sector. Shame? What shall I say. In terms of viewing figures, it is neither thunderous nor dramatic. Last Thursday evening 378,000 viewers. That’s not good, not bad, but okay. They do something very different from Wilfred Genee, René van der Gijp and Johan Derksen van Inside today who replace them? Yes and no. Their Marcel & Gijs talk show is most similar to their other talk show, Media Inside, only it was weekly and they talked about media, a subject they both know and think about. Now they have to know and find something about many subjects every day, and that is where the parallel arises with the men of VI who were more doable when they only talked about football.
How do I say this without offending a valued columnist who is also a colleague? I think Marcel van Roosmalen is the first to admit that he is tired of Marcel-van-Roosmalen. Come on, the second then. It’s like VI talk show host Wilfred Genee at the talk show on Sunday night Race on Sunday from RTL4 to Renze Klamer said, all very “meta” what happens at Marcel & Gijs. He had been guests of his replacements and found them quite “entertaining”. Victoria Koblenko, also at the table with Renze, and previously with Marcel & Gijs, found all that meta stuff uncomfortable. “You don’t know if you’re being ridiculed, if a compliment is a compliment or a joke, so I sat there with tense buttocks.” And that fragment from Renze on Sunday was broadcast again on Monday by Marcel & Gijs. Singer Hans de Booij discussed his imminent homelessness with Renze the night before, with Gijs and Marcel he could tell that he had been offered a house in the village of singer Frans Bauer.
You can read television criticism in all that referring to other programs and pumping around guests. On television it is mainly about television, and Marcel and Gijs take it up a notch as if to prove how idiotic it really is. In recent episodes Omroep Max boss Jan Slagter passed by, TV maker Raven van Dorst, TV presenter Emma Wortelboer and that’s only half the list. On Tuesday, TV critic Angela de Jong of the AD to come, she regularly joins the table VI, On 1 and JinekSo the circle is almost complete. Or no, they should invite Eus, writer Özcan Akyol. Talk show eater and ratings magnet.
TV personality Britt Dekker claimed on Monday evening that she had never seen Gijs and Marcel as happy as they are now, with their daily show. They couldn’t deny that, and they blamed it on the excellent food they got in the SBS canteen. A dog meat festival in China, Gordon, was discussed, and it was at length about a derailed roller coaster car in Sweden on Sunday, resulting in injuries and one death. Not a word about the Wagner troops that steamed up to Moscow on Saturday. A video, by reporter Olaf Koens, who told the Renze broadcast on Sunday the day before what the imminent invasion had caused him.
And when commercials came on, I flipped to the first episode of Renze – that’s what his program is called when he’s the substitute for the daily, weekday talk show. Yes, he sat at a full table neatly having the conversation of the day. With Moscow correspondent Iris de Graaf and former ambassador to Russia and Ukraine Ron Keller, just like Rob de Wijk an all-knowing talk show guest, but a little further. Then back to SBS6, to see that Hans de Booij with his back to the camera was singing ‘Annabel’ along with the soundtrack. Marcel & Gijs was almost over.