Just why IS British TV so poor at the moment.

[Zak33]

Hexus noob "Akill" worded it best in XTR's new telly thread.

Nice TV mate, shame TV is so poor at the moment.

ANd I could NOT agree more. With the odd exception (and I DO MEAN ODD) such as Picture of Britain, we have lost the plot here in UK telly land.

The plot is SO BADLY lost that DVD sales must be soaring like an eagle over the Rockies. Never before have my Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly, Teachers and Only Fools DVD's and vids been used so much as the last 4 months.

I tell you, thank holy hell for PC's, games and my woman, cos TV is CARP

Where are the replacements for Porridge, Open All Hours, Teachers? Why do we have to watch endless hours of "Top 100" or "10 best"?

Why must Reality TV (which has it's place) become so Unreal(ity) by being set up, for more arguements, more fights, more disagreements?

We're not getting new Morse, no replacement to A Touch of Frost.
In fact Grumpy Old Men is the only really good show to make me laugh, and even THAT made me feel sad, cos the buggers were all right!

Some one....anyone...tell me I'm missing 5 shows per week worthy of watching.

Please before I explode like a pigeon with a bicarb of soda diet!

[TiG]

Wonderfalls on Sky One.
Road Wars on Sky One.
Extras started this week - but feel this is an aquired taste...

But then i'm glad its so rubbish, and i've stopped playing so many games and my new love of reading has brought me so much pleasure that i'm glad there isn't much good on tele.

TiG

[Zak33]

Sky One.....hmm.......maybe.

Was HOPING it might be a British thing to revive my hopes!

[Howard]

It's because we're a nation full of people who appreciate ****e TV so they keep pumping it out. Crap like Big Brother, How Clean Is Your House and Footballer's Wives is obviously watched by millions


The BBC are doing a good job of showing fairly decent programming with all their Drama series as are ITV when theyr'e not showing I'm A Celebrity, Get me Out Of Here. But Urgh, I agree. TV nowadays is naff.

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

For fear of being stereotypical I have my theories that the swelling British lower classes prefer "dumbed down" tv. Your Unreality Shows, Cars Chases in Extreme and Improbable Circumstances 6.75, the aforementioned Top 100 shows that would never actually make it into any decent shortlist, endless Chav vs Chav ring bouts in chat shows and Pointless Game shows with added Z-List Celebrities to pit charities against one another.

The thing that annoys me is that most people are so damn impressionable. They are so easily convinced by advertising and magazines about what they should watch! Big Brother's audience would half over night if everything bar the actually show itself stopped. The extra coverage shows, the magazine stories, the interviews and the newspaper "articles" feed the show with Muppets who watch in fear that they might miss something - evidently they don't miss anything other than something useful like say the news.

This then leads to the money spiral - all the money in television goes to the reality shows therefore channels need to show them to get any advertising money. No money is given to ambitious or slightly risky projects that Moonbeam / Zara Public doesn't see in Heat and therefore can't gossip about with her mates. So potentially great shows are hit on the head at conception stage and either die a death or buggar off to the U S of A where most of the great TV seems to be coming from these days.

The only programs I have the faintest interest in recently are from the States, I'm still reserving judgement on Extras although it's promising so far. Scrubs, Family Guy, 24, Gilmore Girls (call me sad )and many others blow away British equivalents.

Is there hope...? Please someone tell me there is!

[TiG]

To the ends of the earth on BBC2. That was good too.

TiG

[Lee H]

BBC3 is changing this rule as a whole with some of the BEST comedy shows ever made firmly implanted between 2 rubbish shows called "who rules the roost".

To be honest the only shows I watch are comedy's and sci-fi like Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and the 4400

Everything else just isn't TV as far as I'm concerned

[headbrace]

Extras, Absolute Power are both pretty good so far.

New series of the Smoking Room is on on Tuesday, so there is hope if half decent show like this are being (re)commisioned. Alas, it will probably take a lot before it overwhelms the Reality TV shows that people seem so fond of. While it is pandering to the lowest common denomiator of viewer, it is exceedingly cheap tv to make for the possible audience figures and related merchandise/editorial/publicity. Plus they can seel it overseas.

[sybrows]

I watched that Extra;'s thing with Ricky Gervais on 2 Last night and thought that was q good .....gotta admit that don't watch very much TV anymore tho.
BrOw

[Atomic]

BBC3 is changing this rule as a whole with some of the BEST comedy shows ever made firmly implanted between 2 rubbish shows called "who rules the roost".

BBC3 is the best channel on freeview.

Worth the cost of the box just for that!

[Lee H]

BBC3 is the best channel on freeview.

Worth the cost of the box just for that!

Indeed.

I bought 2 PCI nova-T cards just so I can record various shows on BBC3 while watching another channel when on the PC.

[5lab]

i think it is something to do with the throw-awayness of cuture today. series are failing because people dont want to commit to watching something every week at a cirtain time, they want something to watch for an hour, next weeks they can miss, then pick it up again - i personally feel this is why dramas are failing more.. i think tivo/sky+ etc may be the savior.

that said, there are some great new shows coming soon. lost is starting on channel 4 soon, and its awesome. house is on channel 5 (a brilliant brilliant comody).. i actually watch more shows that i download than what i watch on tv, and ya know, i have a LARGE cable tv package (everything thats not sky sports and sky movies).. but i'm never around - downloaded shows are much more confinient. if i could have sky+ i would, but ntl are SH*T at providing a competitor.. they're pushing tvod instead, which i think is a while off in reality..

[Akill]

i dont watch alot of TV really because not alot of it is good.

i find it especially hilarious from such programs like 'what not to wear' single handedly set the female fashion for the country. its crazy.

[Ravens Nest]

I found the catherine tate show to be very funny, it's a comedy sketch show.

Where she plays the main parts, i also found the old woman character she plays to be hilarious.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/ar...99040216.shtml

Yeah and Extras as well.

But i dont enjoy much on the telly except american comedy i.e. Scrubs, Frasier e.t.c.

i am a huge fan of old british comedy like black adder, red dwarf, 2 point 4 children, Phoenix nights, Father ted

[Scarlet Infidel]

I thought the catherine tate show was very simple humour, you could see the gags coming. Though i still found points amusing despite its crudeness.

Like Tig i too am returning to my love of books, theres nothing like your imagination building on someone elses to keep you entertained.

However i do love comedy programs and have watched my teachers and family guy series amongst others a fair few times in this drought of decent TV (i MUST get a freeview card for my pc).

[ikonia]

this is something that I discuss with colleges a bit in work.

Part of this is just poor TV, part of this is the new generation of kids.

Look at some of the shows that are considered classics, for example Open all Hours, Only fools and horses, and red dwarf (they where mentioned in the first post) These are simple fun TV, however ask a kid of say 15 to watch it now, and he wouldn't get it because of the way life has changed, such as there are few corner shops left so arwkwrites would be a new thing for him, the dodgy street trader isn't seen as much peddling his wares accept at car boot sales, he's now on ebay, and reddwarf as funny as it is doesn't have a cgi character in it, so would simpley be ignored.

Look at older "varaity shows" such as the two ronnies or the goodies, they where replaced with the next generations "varaity" show such as vic reves big night out, or the mary white house expereience, which has now been replaced with Bo Selecta

Now as funny as each of these is you must see the trend that each one is becoming more shocking in each generation to appeal to the audience.

I think TV is getting worse for 20+ year olds as the likes of Newman and Baddiel, Only fools and horses, even its a knock out, will never re-appear simpley because that generation is no longer controlling the TV.