This weekend I went home, and I mean home home. Whilst there, I decided that to pass some time I would sit around and watch some TV with my mum. This activity lasted roughly 3 minutes before I genuinely could no longer sit there listening to the arrant idiocy spewing out of the cretins who - somehow - have taken over the visual medium. I didn't realise quite how inane television had become since I'd trotted off to university. Even though I still own a cretin-feeder here in my house, I tend to only use it for the three shows a week I enjoy, and for watching DVD's on (and occasionally tapping some kind of controller-ma-bob).
Yes, I must have missed the memo where 'King of TV' decided that "from henceforth, nothing of any intellectual merit can ever be produced. Unless it's a period drama. Directed by Stephen Poliakoff. Starring Billie Piper." I fairly renounced atheism and boarded the lunatic-train, just so I could ask the human race for redemption from eternal damnation. If any proof of our hellward-bound lifestyle was needed - which I sincerely doubt - then here it is, live and unedited: 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, three-hundred-and-sixty-god-damn-five days a year. I wouldn't have thought it remiss to ask terrestrial television to occasionally include something that wasn't set in the Victorian period; then again, this kind of pseudo-period, woefully-researched dirge is infinitely more enjoyable than anything made by Channel 4 or ITV anymore. When did REALITY (and it genuinely hurts me to say this) TV become such big business? Did something happen whilst I was asleep in '07? Was there some kind of nationwide neurological virus which caused everyone's IQ to drop by thirty points? There needs to be some reasonable explanation for why this kind of visual bollocks appeals to people who - as far as I was aware - aren't or weren't of subnormal intelligence.
Let me flick on my television now, and see where my hundred and forty-odd quid is being pissed.
BBC1: Songs of Praise. Rated 9.9 for... well I haven't a clue to be brutally honest. This is lowest common denominator tripe, tubed directly into people's empathy and guilt brain. I see no other reason why a show of religious singing could garner viewing figures in the millions, when the country's 'church attendance' must rank at around 8 people a week. I've nothing innate against this kind of programming, if there are people to watch it; what I take issue with is that it's 35 minutes of people singing hymns. This week includes "Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending"; yeah, I'm in the mile-high club, too. I genuinely don't understand why religious propaganda gets such a good press, unless, of course, it's working. Heaven help us.
BBC2: Live Tennis. The final: Novak Djokovic vs. Nikolay Davydenko. Presumably after they've finished running around and grunting, they'll both receive prizes for "most stereotypical Russian names. Ever". Or at least they would were I in charge of the ATP (get me). Again, nothing particularly against the showing of live sport. I do take slight issue with the fact that sport that has seemingly nothing to do with us gets poured down our throats for hours on end, but when our national football team play in the world-cup we're forced to pay to watch them on satellite. That strikes a discordant note. Then again, I suppose it just fits in with the rest of this abortive conglomeration of stupidity.
ITV (here comes the good stuff): A Touch of Frost. For anyone outside of armchair-suburbia, this show basically features one of our most lauded, and ancient might I add, actors ambling around poorly constructed, not-at-all-believable crime scenes; sporadically stroking his moustache, and making horrendously laughable puns at the expense of unpaid extras. "Pawnbroker Peter Lawson [I kid you not] is shot dead in an armed robbery at his premises and Frost's investigations unearth a tragic family secret." Just before you all suffer heart-attacks at the suspense of this, it gets better. Also, bear in mind, as of this sentence, it is 5.34 in the afternoon: "He is convinced Lawson was killed by one of his children in revenge for years of systematic sexual abuse - but the truth turns out to be even more chilling." Surely it cannot be more chilling than pre-watershed incestuous paedophilia? This kind of moron-baiting should include a "please leave your sanity at the door" caveat. How else are we to believe the narrative inconsistencies, the lamentable acting, the contrived plot? David Jason is fine, but he should really go away now.
BBC1 will have a type-cast slot for him lined up already: "Now on BBC1 a bumbling 'real-life' parody set in a cardboard village starring David Jason as the proverbial doddery old man not really capable of supporting his own hackneyed eccentricities. Billie Piper stars as the daughter who helps him mop up drool. Rated 5 stars."
Channel4 (oh yes, we have made this show out of the bottom of the bucket): Deal or No Deal? I dare'n't spend too much time laying into this laughable piece of crap, because nine-million other people have beaten me to it. I will say a few things, however: This isn't a game-show. Noel Edmonds is wonderful in a sort of 'creepy-uncle' way. It's borderline cult behaviour. It's the best thing on Channel 4 today.
My heartfelt apologies to anyone who didn't understand any of that above, but I assure you it is both accurate and funny... The idea was that this woeful line-up would amply demonstrate just how banal television has become, and how depressingly predictable. It has come to a point where you could watch television without watching television. Or at least you could if the box hadn't ruined your imagination, leaving you utterly incapable of fantastical thought.
I will outline where my problems come and how I suggest we fix these. Then I will briefly recommend the two shows that are worth watching, and that originate from this country, and from these broadcasters (shown above).
The first, and major, qualm that I have is that TV doesn't necessarily need to be educational. I'm not one of these anti-television lobbyists who herald the televisual age as the beginning of the end. If you think that the populace need to 'get their learndings' from the television, you're either completely correct, or a patronising git. We have systems of education for teaching, the last thing you want after working/learning is to be preached to by some pompous-dickhead wearing a floppy cap lecturing on the functions of neurons in the production of pain reactions. Or something. No, I'm not one of these people, I credit myself with more intelligence than that: evidently because I haven't been watching any TV. I believe that TV can be as asinine as it wants, as long as it's bloody interesting. Not just the same ideas reformatted and republished to be consumed by the same god-awful people over and over again. Not anymore will I tolerate Big Brother Series 97; no longer will I drool through 'A touch of Frost: Crime in Spain', and no fucking longer will I be bludgeoned to death by 'Hole in the wall'. If you don't know the third-named, I strongly urge you to youtube it: it's fantastically puerile.
Obviously, as far as 'entertainment' is concerned, there is a certain level of subjectivity. I am a stalwart defender, however, of the thought that subjectivity is not limitless; that you cannot do or be as you please and brush it off as opinion. I could quite easily create a pen where monkeys fling faeces at each other all day, I would also be in my subjective rights to call this entertainment and market it as such; I would not, however, be justified in doing so. Once you start marketing a niche show simply on the basis that 'some people might find this entertaining' you have gone too far.
Reality television - apart from its horrible and unforgivable ballsing of the word - cannot, and will not, ever be called entertainment as long as I live. It is the lowest of the low. It epitomises how lazy and abhorrently boring some people are: that they would rather live vicariously through people they don't know - and people who are less stimulating than they themselves, I might add - than go out into the world and give things a go themselves. The people that go on those shows: good on you. The people that watch them: get out, you're pointless. Fling yourself off a bridge. Here are a few which might help you on your way to hell.
So if TV doesn't necessarily need to be educational, but it quite clearly isn't entertaining, what service does it provide? Well, aside from being a gargantuan drain on the audience's pockets, it does that which the 21st Century lifestyle necessitates: it kills time, and it distracts. This is why I'm perfectly content to not rush the BBC and burn it down for being offensive to my very being. In the so called '24-hour society' that we live in, this kind of mind-numbing distraction is obligatory to the survival of our race. It's as if the fates have destined our race to spin slowly in the centrifugal forces of work and benumbing idiocy. On one side you have the distraction of work and its need for survival, and on the other you have the distraction of the idiot-box and its need for survival. In the middle, crucially, you have that omnipresent urge to commit suicide. I have drawn a Venn diagram to demonstrate how this works, but unfortunately the people who code this site don't have any brains, so I will have to upload it in its link form:
http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss280/nuguns/Venn.jpg
I take affront with the way in which TV conducts itself, however, and why it's 'needed'. I'd like to think - with my wanton idealism - that there are more proactive and beneficial ways of distracting ourselves from the mind-numbing mundaneness of 21st Century living. Naturally, as a profligate optimist, I'd also like to think that people are content enough in their lots to not really need a constant distraction to lure them away from the tempting embraces of suicide. Alas, as an occasional realist, I do acknowledge the need for this, if this is as it is. I do think, however, that there are better ways of stimulating yourself of an evening. Writing, for instance, or having a conversation. Browsing the internet for information (not just updating your shitting Facebook status with something like "nothing on tv. surfing web. lol. not relly. no surfboard. lol"); maybe penning a novel, or darning a quilt, or baking a cake, or reading a book, or watching a movie, or staring listlessly out of the window, or, perish the thought, going the fuck outside.
I am a firm believer in the power of the environment as a healer. If I were ever to qualify as a psychiatrist or general practitioner - ha-ha-ha, can you imagine!? - I would often recommend the use of anti-depressants and exercise concurrently. Call me stupid, but I genuinely believe that just getting out and walking, or going to the shops, or going for a drive into the country, can act as a temporal distraction. Try it, you might be surprised. That's if TV hasn't wilted your bones or something. No, but seriously, you don't even need to go out, I believe that if people just stopped with their incessant tv-watching, and had the occasional conversation with their spouse/friend/child then familial or friendship dynamics would be improved. Not only that, but improved exponentially with the less amount of television consumed. That's what it is. Consumption.
As for how TV conducts itself, well, I feel the previous 2,000 words speak for themselves, really.
Oops. Kinda banged on a little there. I will move swiftly on - and I can move swiftly, because I don't watch a lot of TV ;D! So if TV does its job as it does, and successfully, if immorally and tediously, then what other problem might I have with it? Hmm, let's see:
1) It costs too much money.
2) It's infantile.
3) The people on it are paid too much.
4) It's ubiquitous.
5) It's boring.
Ha, I bet you thought I was going to cover all of these at length. No, even I am not that silly, I realise I've probably battered my one reader down to an eighth of his brain by now, so, hello there, recesses of his mind!
I will simply prod a little at 4): how TV is always there, how TV never goes away, and how TV is that weird feeling you get when you're walking along late at night and feel like someone is watching or following you.
Evidently, the first two are the same, and the third one is just my little joke. Nay, the first two are important, I feel, because it's saddening that it's true. TV truly is the bane of my life, I swear, you cannot get rid of it, however hard you might try.
As a mildly lazy sod, I approve of 'things for convenience'. I like local shops that have obscene open hours: as long as my house doesn't sit beneath the lurid, neon glare of their chav-baiting signs; I like cars which go fast and make a "vrooom" noise, and I like how easy it is to make a three-course meal at home. I wouldn't, however, classify TV as a convenience; a convenience - contemporaneous to our modern-day lifestyle - denotes a survival need made easy. We all need to eat, travel, shop, talk, sing, dance, laugh, etc., we do not, however, need the TV. I know this is grossly over-simplified, has gaping holes in its logic, and makes me sound like a proper bore, but I think the roots of it are germane enough. If something improves the quality of ones life, then perhaps we should praise it; if it merely makes ones life easier, perhaps we should not.
Just before I go away and watch TV (not really), I will just point out the shows I like and why I like them. So here they are, all two of them:
Spooks: A hilariously over-the-top parody of the 'action-show'. Set in Mi5, it charts the weekly terrorist threats to our national security; the beautifully stupid love-lives of the protagonists, and the silly facial expressions the head of Mi5 can pull. It doesn't take itself too seriously as a TV show: main characters are killed off almost weekly in ever-increasingly grotesque ways (the week that lass had her head shoved in a deep-fat friar springs to mind). There's none of that linearity that we've all come to expect from shows; sometimes you genuinely don't know what will happen. Even our top secret agents sometimes fail and bombs go off. All that is known is that the country won't be totally destroyed, because then there'd be no more.
As a side-note, I was so engrossed in this last week that at one point I was literally agape at what I was watching, and I started dribbling. You could easily have shoved three fists down my throat. If you'd wanted to.
Top Gear: Fabulously irreverent buffoonery conducted by three 'should-know-better'-middle-aged men. Looks at cars, drives cars, forces the presenters into ludicrously farcical challenges (such as build your own police car). It's just funny, and doesn't really care what people think of it. It also helps that it is hosted by a man who epitomises the way this country should be: he doesn't care what the public think of him, or his opinions. I may not agree with him, but, by jove, I will defend his right to think it, Sir.
Please. Turn it off. Read a book.
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