Archive for the ‘ TV ’ Category
The witless wanderer walks over Blencathra in the second part of her four part pose across the Lake District. This time we are thankfully introduced to the man who, evident from his few minutes on camera, should have been presenting the series in its entirety. Hoorah for David Powell-Thompson. The weather today was reasonably clear but with annoying patches of Bradbury. These may clear up by the end of the series.
Fresh from the trails around Grasmere, it seemed like fate to return home to find a series about Wainwright starting up on BBC4. Each week, a programme is devoted to one of Wainwright’s most loved walks. The opportunity to show the stunning landscape and hear the wit and observation of AW come through was not to be missed. Yet missed it was as Julia Bradbury – that well known travel correspondant – managed to drain the Lakes of all interest. Her witless observations attempted to place a modern spin upon Wainwright as she so aptly observed things such as “Wainwright believed the Lakes could take your mind off incessant worries – we all have incessant worries don’t we?” The depth of her analysis reached across the valleys in a way that would surely unite any person who would claim to love that land. The landscapes, dull as they are, were lifted by lingering close-ups of Julia’s blank face as the cameraperson cleverly contrasted those smooth lines with the ancient crags. Truly, a masterclass in documentary making.
I’d rather have watched Johnny Vegas drag himself up there. At least it would have been entertaining.
Hating all things that link television to charity and it’s Mary Poppins approach to easing the pain of giving, it nonetheless came as a big surprise to find out that the barrel to which the BBC will scrape is, in fact, bottomless. Always the launchpad to tired old celebrities as they dig their fingernails into fame even if it does mean drawing blood from the backs of disabled children, it appalled me to hear ‘Downtown’ as sung by the Bonnie Langford of our generation – one Emma Bunton. Quite how this upbeat look at social disparities reflects upon the ethos of CIN, I won’t go into but I’m dearly hoping that there will be a lovely video of tearful children filmed in angst-friendly black-and-white to accompany the spritely woman’s choreographed jovility.
SKY has outbid Channel 4 for the rights to show Lost for the next two series. That means seasons three and four will be satellite only as the media behemoth devours everything successful. Not that Channel 4 are interested in the programme for entertainment reasons of course – they would drop it like a wet turd if it became too niche no matter how well written, well acted or well directed it was. Of course Lost isn’t terribly entertaining anyway. What started out with the promise of a sugar rush has proved to be exactly that – sweet and unfullfilling.
When will TV cease sucking out our man-juice without giving us the baby?
Super-production Robin Hood had its first outing on saturday courtesy of the good old BBC and oh dear oh dear what a mess. Whilst it isn’t difficult to believe that the tapes were returned rather than recovered it is more difficult to see where the £8 million went because none of the show matched any previous incarnations of the grand olde english yarn.
One alarming change, however, was in Robin’s apparent endorsement of Adam Smith and his trickle down economics. Here we had a Robin Hood passionately arguing for the freedom to trade as a means of raising tax based revenue. Where, exactly, is the forced redistribution of wealth ethic in all of this? It will be interesting to see how the modern Hood resolves this contradiction without appearing to be merely getting his own back once the system he supported and profitted from turns its back on him. Well ok, that’s not strictly true – would have been interesting had the acting or writing offered any incentive to watch again.
Every morning I “like” to watch a bit of breakfast television. I don’t know why, perhaps because it is rich in opportunities to increase my blood pressure which somehow seems to fuel my journey to work. My channel of choice is the Beeb – mainly because it is the first channel on my remote control. Each day brings up a new example of one or both of the presenters making their feelings on a particular story very clear. Or Declan breaking strikes and giving hard-nosed interviews to businessmen.
Anyhoo, this morning there was a fluff piece about people and animals cooling down in this “blistering” heat. The last segment featured a pig swimming whilst wearing sunglasses. It was very humourous of course. But what was enjoyable was that afterwards one of the presenters, in that friendly, I’m-in-your-living-room-having-a-brew kind of way, observed that “you just couldn’t make it up.”
Clever pig that then.
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