Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Television repeats

So I'm guessing that CITV has only the one series of "Justice League" given that they've ended the three part episode of "The Savage Time" (23, 24, and 25) and have just shown the three-parter "Secret Origins" 1, 2, and 3. As I'm late to the party and missed these total selfishness means I don't mind until they hit the ones I've already seen. At which point I'll moan that they aren't showing the second series or the thirty-nine episodes of the follow-on show.

Hey it's better then the news and quite frankly has a more mature plot then a lot of prime-time programming; besides it's got a proper taciturn, brooding Batman.

On the same note I see Channel 4 are doing their thing with "The Simpsons" again. We got five episodes of season 15 (out of twenty-one) before stepping back slightly to watch the entirety of season 14 skipping "C.E. D'oh", "'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky" and "Three Gays of the Condo" of course ('Damn it these are cartoons they're for kids we can't show these at 6pm') before jumping back to watching season 8 (again I recall some odd gaps) and hey look now we're starting at season 13.

I'll just give the simplified episode numbers in the order they're being shown - 1307, 1306, 1308, 1310, 1314, 1313. Okay so the order within the season doesn't mean much, but we seem to have jumped five episodes here; not to mention four seasons; why? Channel 4 made such a big fuss over getting the rights to broadcast "The Simpsons" from BBC2, trumpeting how they'll be showing brand-new content, and now they're doing exactly the same thing the bloody BBC did and flicking aimlessly between seasons and skipping episodes.

So with "Reaper", "The Big Bang Theory", and "Terminator:SCC" long off the air and both "Doctor Who" and "Heroes" coming to an end there truly does seem to be less and less of anything worth watching on TV (and this season of "Heroes" wasn't exactly ablaze). I'll take a look at this "Bonekickers", which I guess is replacing Who's slot, but from the trailers it does look scarily set in the "Primeval" mould. [sigh] At least there's always Channel 4's "Despatches". Now which book shall I start today?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can entirely sympathise with your views on children's programming. Even at its most outrageously moralistic, children's programmes remind you of those lessons you have long since forgotten. People complain often that today's children are not learning about the classics or literature, but I maintain that e.g. The Silver Surfer has much more imagery from Greek mythology and philosophy than any grown-up series. Revisiting the genre and the forms as an adult gives you a new appreciation for how finely detailed, how multi-layered, and how not-patronising, the best children's programmes are.

FlipC said...

Even on the moralistic front they can be subtler then non-children's programming.

The latest two episodes of "Justice League" had Green Lantern voluntarily come quietly for trial. We had another GL as a character witness -

"So what do you do with this enormous power?"
"We stop the bad guys"
"And how do you determine who the bad guys are?"
"Ummm"

Likewise after being found guilty and sentenced one character remonstrates with GL about going through with this and is told-
"We have been given this power and we have to held accountable for it"

Two episodes here that should be shown monthly to our MPs.

Anonymous said...

My parents both have some kind of digital TV reception system. Instead of just 5 channels, you get 500! Just think of all the existing ne— is that Emmerdale?

…You're showing reruns of Emmerdale from 1960? WTF??

Seriously. All these hundreds of “new” channels give you is repeats of old content. Ancient westerns that nobody remembers, war films, old soaps, and stuff that was junk when it was brand new. A few of the better channels repeat stuff that's half-decent, but still… it's repeats.

Is there nothing new of interest being produced??

FlipC said...

You have a million pound budget for the year for one channel. Now you have two channels, but the same budget. Now three, now four.

You're also competing with all the other channels who are scrabbling for attention. So you ain't got enough dough to do anything of quality and it has to be attention grabbing. Welcome to Pop Idol, Big Brother, and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night London Hour with a ton of repeats as filler.

I'm guessing that the BBC are seriously regretting selling the rights to broadcast the old Dr. Who's to UK Gold.

In all honesty though they're also showing repeats of The Prisoner and The Avengers so there is some quality mixed in with the dross; except I don't think it's deliberate effort.