|
On the one hand, there have been some of my favourite new TV made in the past decade eg Life of Mammals, The Mighty Boosh, Lost; and also the continuation of existing favourites eg Time Team, Horizon,.
On the other hand, channels such as ITV seem to cosist entirely of 'bring a barrel' programming (ie if you bring a barrel, they'll happily scrape the bottom of it). THere's a lot more tosh around, but is that not merely because there are so many more channels, with so much more airtime to be filled?
It's possible to detect cause for optimism, though; in the UK we've had more good comedy in the past ten years than we've had for a long time, news coverage has improved and there have been some excellent TV dramas (eg almost anything Stephen Poliakoff writes, especially the twin peaks of Shooting the PAst and Perfect Strangers which rank in the highest pantheon of productions). Even Channel 5 are no longer a pile of shit: their recent series The Buildings that MAde Britain (or something similar) was excellent, as are their art documentaries.
And a special mention for Jonthan Meades, who when he presents Abroad In Britain manages to combime insight and humour splendidly.
|