REVIEW: Most Haunted Series 20 Episode 9 (The Judges Lodgings Pt 1) to air 17th November 2017

I am curious, has any of the BadPsychics readers ever been to see Barcelona FC play live? You know, sat in the Nou Camp Stadium, and watched Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi play? I have. I saw them play, and it was amazing. About a month later I was back in the UK and I happened upon a couple of free tickets to see Walsall FC play. For those unaware, Barcelona play in the top tier, top league in Catalan, Spain and are possibly the biggest team in the world, and Walsall play in the 3rd tier of the UK leagues. 

Now imagine watching a ghost hunting show whereby nearly everything is good, the filming is excellent, the subject matter taken serious, very few silly gimmicks, and like-able hosts. That is Ghost Chasers, that is Barcelona.

Well now I am watching Most Haunted, and they could only dream of being as good as Walsall FC reserve team.

Anyway for some reason Karl has left his blart sock stuck against the wall, and once you peel it away you see all that congealed blurbage inside and here it is.

"Spook-searching with Yvette and co! The team head to Presteigne in Wales and the famous Judge's Lodgings where they are put through their paces by an unseen spirit."

This disclaimer has taken a lot of flack over the years, for it is an admittance that what you are about to see is not real, it is scripted reality show, a spoof, a parody, however you like to interpret it. But I do not think Most Haunted should have to display this. Yes it is scripted, it is a spoof, a parody, but to claim it is "entertainment" that I just cant accept.

I think it should be changed to
"This programme is for viewing purposes only"
That would be much more accurate.

Anyway I have taken two Tramadol tablets, I've drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels, and I should just about be capable of getting through this review.

Yvette starts off by introducing us to the location and priming the noobs watching of what to expect, also Arsene Wenger is well pissed off that Yvette has copied his look.

No sign of Watson again which is a huge disappointment.

I think Yvette must've had an accident as she has hung her pants up to dry.

To be fair to the place, the Judges Lodgings does look pretty cool, and definitely spooky, of course not at all haunted, but still a fun looking location.

"As soon as we stopped filming objects seemed to be thrown"

Well that makes a change, that or Fred didn't realise the cameras had been turned off.

Do Most Haunted bring their own gimmicks to throw in these old locations, or do they just use what is present? I can't imagine that the owners of such places being happy with MH throwing their property.

With all the crew moving about, there seems to be a lot of noise, and they all start ruining about, therefore creating more noise.

Looking like another typical episode with knocks, taps and stuff being thrown OFF CAMERA.

They keep hearing a noise, and run back to a room where they claim the noise is, but they cant find anything, of interest.

Yvette thinks the noise might be this, and I tend to agree with her, and it is just Karl throwing it as soon as he is not on camera.

Because everything that happened was OFF CAMERA it is all instantly useless as "evidence".

For a moment I was feeling happy as I realised that there is only 1 more episode left in this series after this one, but then I felt sad as I remembered that I had not reviewed the earlier episodes yet. 

This is a very fair representation of me.

Yvette etc are still setting up when....
A fork has been thrown OFF CAMERA.
Now a knife has been thrown OFF CAMERA.
A Pudding mold has been thrown OFF CAMERA.

Yvette turns her back to the room and says "can we do some more" while clearly waiting for someone, sorry I mean a ghost to throw something else. Bizarrely the cameraman films Yvette and not the room which means the wooden spoon that is then thrown is thrown OFF CAMERA.

Yvette says thank you to the ghosts for throwing things.

Worth noting that there is 3 people in the room, and two of them have cameras, yet in this square room, neither of them caught 4 separate items being thrown. I wonder why that would be? (No need to wonder, Karl is throwing the items)

Now a wicker basket has been thrown OFF CAMERA.
Again this was clearly thrown by Karl since he is at the back and he waits for Yvette and the other Cameraman to walk away from him. 

Karl claims to have "caught that" meaning the item moving, but of course when we see his footage, it is after the item has been thrown (by Karl's left hand).

Ok lets put this into context as many believers of MH will claim this is real.
MH is claiming here that 5 separate items have been thrown by the ghosties, not one of them was caught on camera from the moment it was thrown, despite there being two cameramen. Don't you think that if you really wanted to catch evidence of paranormal activity you would try to film as much of the room as possible at the same time and keeping everyone else in frame as to avoid claims of fakery?

To believers of MH ask yourself this, Either Most Haunted after 20 series are still incredibly incompetent at the most basic of filming techniques, or the ghosts somehow only throw stuff OFF CAMERA because they do not really want to prove that they exist but they want stuff to happen?

Think rationally here, and ask yourself what is more likely, that something that is easily faked, is being easily faked, or that MH are just insanely unlucky 100% of the time?

Now for those of us in the know, none of this is a surprise, if you are making a fake ghost hunting show, you need to fake stuff, but do it in such a way that you cant get caught out. But the problem is a lot of people think this show is real, and it is these people I want to get to, and hope that somewhere in their heads they will start to question things.

17 minutes into the episode and Glen makes his first appearance and surprise surprise he has his hands in his pockets.

Yvette explains the early happenings to Glen and he is doing his best not to look to bored.

As soon as Glen's back is turned some more things are thrown OFF CAMERA, and all from the vicinity of Karl.

I will leave this image here without comment, those in the know will understand.

23 minutes in and they still haven't switched to the night filters yet, don't think we have ever gotten this far into an episode without the fake night vision.

They are back in the kitchen and another knife has been thrown OFF CAMERA.

This really is getting ridiculous now. Just purely by luck if any of this was real one would get caught on camera.

Even Glen is saying how they are not getting anything on camera.

As they leave the kitchen, Karl is last out and surprise surprise another fork is thrown OFF CAMERA.

Surely even the most noobiest of noobs watching can't be believing this is real. It is so obviously Karl every day.

Glen has set up his EVP experiment using different types of technology.
Quick reminder that all of these experiments are instantly evidentially worthless and a complete waste of time.

Hilariously Yvette then talks about not liking the spirit box, and has a little rant about them, which is clearly a shot at the Ghost Adventures show.
God help her if she ever sees the Echovox app that Ghost Chasers use.

"EVP does work, it has been proven" - Yvette Fielding

Yes she really does say that.
A bit like a toddler saying "The tooth fairy is real, it's been proven cause there was a 50p under my pillow and my tooth had gone"

The same level of evidence.

They have now set up the locked off cameras, which really would have been useful earlier in the episode, but of course we know the real reason why they weren't set up then. (Note: This is the ONLY shot from this cameras, about 2 seconds, they are not mentioned again in this episode)

It also occurred to me why they wasted so much time doing the early stuff OFF CAMERA, this is a two part episode, so that is 90 minutes they need to fill, so the first half hour of that has been the pre-investigation fannying about.

The fake night vision filters have now been put on, and funnily enough they give the game away when they show some highlights from earlier that were filmed in colour, but are now mysteriously in "night vision".

Fred is looking suspicious as he moves in front of the camera, and then suddenly a wooden spoon is dropped in front of him. And in the replay if you look really carefully it looks like it comes from within Fred's coat.

You know that look you have when you have just had a quicky and your hair is a bit ruffled but you are trying to pretend nothing happened........?

No Stuart again this week, maybe he has buggered off with Watson.

Back with Karl and Fred, and there is a noise, it is a rolling pin, it has been thrown............. OFF CAMERA.

Lots of shots of Glen and Yvette at Glen's computer.

I am surprised it even works with the sheer amount of porn he has on there, and some pretty weird stuff too. A lot of parody porn. I recall seeing one video labelled "A Very Blue Peter"

Not sure what that could have been about.

You can tell they are trying to stretch things out as we then get a 30 second shot of Glen's computer playing back an audio file of background noise, that shows nothing.

Worth noting that the "night vision" effect they use is added in post production, as opposed to an actual filter used on the cameras at the time.

If you remember the classic Mary Loves Dick scene from MHL many many years ago, you can see that they are using the same fakery techniques from then that they are using now, to convince the viewer that a scene is darker than it really is.

There is a lot of time wasting in this episode with Yvette and Glen at the computer, a lot of filler.

Then there is a big noise, Yvette is panicked, and they cut the shot to leave us on a cliff hanger.

Another truly terrible episode, nothing of note happened, usual knocks and things thrown OFF CAMERA. Zero evidence of the paranormal, a lot of time wasting.

I cant give this episode more than a 0/10
Tedious and boring to watch.

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By Jon Donnis