I've just noticed that BBC Four's Digital Onscreen Graphic (DOG) has been moved to the corner of the screen (above) from its previous 'quarter-in' (below).
Clearly, to co-incide with the digital switch-over and by the fact that so few people will be watching on a 14:9 screen. Tucking the DOG away in the corner like that also takes it more out of the way.
Of course, the HD channels have always had their DOG in the corner.
As the title suggests, BBC Four is ten years old this year. It may not be the channel that I watch the most but it is the first channel that I check in any listings magazines/Digiguide to see what little gems might me lurking in the schedules.
Some weeks there is little interest but others feature so much that I can't hope to keep up.
It probably won't keep its recent quality, what with the BBC cutbacks, but I hope that it will still have enough of a budget to still keep this viewer interested.
The Best Programme of 2012 Has Already Been Shown And It's Only January
January 2012 by Colebox
I don't usually say much about individual programmes but I have to make an exception here...
I was very much looking forward to the second series of Sherlock over the New Year but nothing prepared me for how magnificent the first episode, "A Scandal in Belgravia", was.
Something is going to have to be extra extra special to top that for 2012. Having said that, I haven't seen the last episode "Reichenbach Fall" yet.
It's just a pity that there are only three episodes.
It is nice to see a traditional cover to the Radio Times return. The Christmas RT is a tradition in my house and it is always something that I keep.
Howevever, while it is a glorious cover the actual programming over the festive period appears a little lack-lustre this year.
Of course, there are a few things that I am going to catch, Doctor Who and The Borrowers but I just wonder if I have been spoilt over the past few years because there is so much missing that I have come to expect: no Ghost Stories For Christmas, no unexpected vintage repeats (such as last year's The Goodies) and far fewer special dramas.
Let's hope I am wrong and I find more to enjoy than my first impressions indicate.
I heard this week that the BBC/Kudos are ending Spooks after ten series. Initially, I greeted this with shock - Spooks is one of my all time favourites - but there are some good aspects to be taken away from this decision.
Many recent drama series have been axed mid-story (More Never-To-Be-Solved-Cliffhangers). Spooks is going to get a proper ending. The series will be a complete package.
Also, Spooks can't be accused of withering away; it has always been good. There was a dip in the third series where the concentration was on the emotional side of things and it was a bit dull. However, even this series ended with a bang in a very violent episode where Danny, one of the original characters, was killed.
However, the one sadness of this is that Spooks was the last contemporary British Action Adventure series. I say contemporary as dramas like Merlin, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Primeval are fantasy series. Spooks was a modern 'real-life' take.
Of course, Strikeback is still on SKY but with the second series' funding coming from the American HBO it is debatable that this will now be a British production (see Torchwood's Miracle Day), especially as Richard Armigate's character appears to be being sidelined to make way for an American lead.
I will miss Spooks very much. I hope that there will be a stylish and worthy replacement. After all, I accepted Spooks as a replacement for the action adventure Bugs.
It was reported recently that BBC Four are dropping comedy and drama from its schedules as the direction it wants to go in is become a proper arts channel.
Whereas I understand the sentiment, I would really miss the BBC Four drama. It seemed to be a channel for us TV enthusiasts. For example; experimenting with live, making science fiction, bringing back the Ghost Story For Christmas and showing vintage drama.
Admitedly, the type of dramas that BBC Four make can quite easily move over to BBC Two, but somehow that doing wonderful things on a tiny budget feel just isn't present anywhere else.
This month, Waking The Dead broadcast its last ever case. I am quite sorry to see it go as it has been one of my favourite cop shows as it did deliver some excellent and chilling stuff over the years.
A clip of Waking The Dead, from an off-air VHS capture, was also the first VHS to digital video conversion that I ever carried out. I don't have the clip anymore, only the screen cap (above), but the wonder of that first capture was still encouragement enough to start my VHS to DVD-R/television recording hobby that preserved many of my off-air tapes.
When the BBC announced a new science fiction series, Outcasts, there were two things that I just knew would happen:
That it would get dumped before it was finished.
That it would end on a cliffhanger.
And so it was to be with Outcasts. This time, however, it got itself dumped twice: firstly moved from its peak Monday/Tuesday night to a late-night Sunday graveyard slot and then came the announcement that no more are to be made.
Outcasts could be a bit slow at times - a failing of a lot of BBC drama series - but there was a lot of promise in its development.
But Outcasts makes it onto the list of The Telly-Fantasy Register of the Unfinished along with the recent casualties, Survivors, Strange, Paradox, The Fixer and (although saved) Primeval.
I was quite sorry to find out this week that Zen, the new BBC One detective series, has not been re-commissioned for a second series. A rather good and well made drama (the GF loved it!) but at least, thankfully, not left on a cliffhanger.
Although not as action packed as the trailers appeared to make it, Zen seemed to be getting the ratings and critical acclaim. So why was this canceled?
Danny Cohen, the new BBC1 controller, said in Radio Times recently that Zen was canceled because "BBC drama has a lot of exciting projects in development". Is it that there are too many cop shows?
But then it has also been suggested that this is the new controller making his mark.
I honestly wish Mr Cohen well, but hope that many other favourites don't end up canceled on a whim and that these new exciting projects are actually exciting and not the soapy dramas we've come to expect of recent years.
Wallace And Gromit's World Of Invention: I Can't Hide My Disappointment
December 2010 by Colebox
Wallace and Gromit's World Of Invention: I like the links, the set pieces are inventive and the animation is as detailed as ever; but why couldn't this be a new W&G adventure?
Still, this year's Christmas stamps are cracking...
BBC1 HD launches on November 3rd; now all I have to do is find an inexpensive and easy way of recording HD content in HD quality.
I do have the capability to record HD with Virgin+ but don't have the capability of keeping anything outside of the Virgin box in HD. Each programme I wish to keep would either fill up the Virgin box's hard drive or have to be downscaled to SD by my DVD recorder, via a Scart lead, which completely defeats the object.
This is prooving to be a bit awkward as, with recent experience, one can be misled quite easily as to what can and can not record in HD...
It appears that the way to go is to record from Satellite via a PC Card but this isn't as easy either because of the logisitics: my Satellite cable doesn't enter the house anywhere near my desktop PC and the reviews for most Satellite cards don't give them a glowing report.
In This Digital Age, Why Is There Still The Old Rivalry?
October 2010 by Colebox
It's the Autumn and Spooks is back; may the bashing of the bad guys commence. Still the action packed thriller it always has been (series three aside) and the television landscape is better for it.
However, four episodes into the new Spooks series it is transmitted directly up against the second series of ITV's hit Police show Whitechapel (ITV's most watched drama of 2009).
I suppose that in these days of various methods of off-air recording - DVD, Sky+, Virgin+, PVRs and those who still use VCRs - it doesn't matter that BBC1 and ITV are broadcasting two of thier biggest shows at the same time; but I think it still does.
In 2009, the second series of The Fixer was put up against the long-running BBC1 police drama Waking The Dead. WTD trounced The Fixer in the ratings; no series three for The Fixer! So here's my fear: Whitechapel knocks down the ratings for Spooks. Spooks ends up getting cancelled.
But the wider issue here is why, in this multi-channel age, are these two broadcasters still battling each other? ITV and BBC are still the two main producers of British drama and to play these against each other is madness. Why can't they co-operate and arrange their schedules so that the wider audience can enjoy as much British drama as possible?
They manage it for the soaps; Eastenders never faces Corronation Street.
I have recently caught up with a bit of my time-shifted backlog and one of these programmes, recorded last may via Virgin+, was Sky1's action adventure drama Chris Ryan's Strike Back (the first programme I've watched on Sky since Space Police episode one, in the mid-90s!).
As many of our dramas do now, the last episode ended on a cliff-hanger. Oh dear, I thought, another British drama that is going to leave us in mid-air and never to be seen again. Off to Google I went expecting to hear the worst.
Not so. Despite only getting ratings of around a third of a million, it has been commissioned for a second series.
As you readers will know, my bugbear with modern British Television is that it is begining to litter its landscape with with unfinished and incomplete series, like America has been doing for years, but Sky has re-commissioned an expensive series with a tiny fraction of the audience that the BBC or ITV enjoy.
Whatever the reasons are behind this decision, and I'm no particular fan of Sky, it is nice to see a broadcaster making home grown drama and showing a bit of loyalty towards it, despite the ratings it achieved.
Another Bit Of Premature Dust Biting And This Time On DVD!
September 2010 by Colebox
One has to wonder if it is ever worth the effort of getting into a new television series ever again.
After being recommended to me, and having missed this programme when it was broadcast, I ordered the first two series of ITV's The Fixer from Play.com. I had high hopes as this was made by Kudos, who make the fantastic Spooks, and I wasn't disappointed: gritty, tense and (thankfully) largely soapless.
So, having watched and enjoyed the first two series, I wanted to know when series three started (series two was broadcast in 2009). A short Google later gave me the answer: it doesn't. It's been axed. Yet another example of an enjoyable show prematurely thrown in the skip.
Why is there this insistance of cliffhanger endings when there is a chance that it won't continue?
In the Seventies and Eighties, I used to often hear people complaining, usually aimed at the BBC, that there were too many repeats on television. I never really held that opinion back then. It always seemed wasteful to spend all that money on a programme and only show it once. Also, in those days, if I missed a programme it stayed missed - unless, of course, it got a repeat showing.
However, I would have to wait for a year (sometimes two) for the programme to be repeated before I got a second chance to see it. Miss the repeat and I felt it would stay missed forever. On many occasions there wouldn't be a repeat at all.
Really, what was there to complain about back then; get two chances to see a programme and that's your lot.
Nowadays there is a silly amount of chances to catch up with a missed programme; especially with on-line catch-up services (BBC iPlayer for example), DVD releases and, for a selected few programmes, a constant loop of repeats on certain channels.
It's this constant loop of repeats that I have a problem with. For a big production programme, such as Doctor Who, to have it on constant repeat (on BBC Three and UKTV Watch), for me, cheapens the programme.
BBC Three's mid-noughties run of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps was another case; it seemed to be on an endless loop with two episodes nightly and as soon as it reached its end it returned to the first episode. See also Friends and Father Ted accross Channel 4's stations.
This behaviour is repeated (no pun intended) on other channels where some looped programmes are shown two or three times on the same day.
I still hear that old repeats complaint today, still aimed at the BBC mainly, but the situation has gone well beyond occasional repeats. Constant looping repeats just reduces programmes to being mere space-fillers and that old complaint, accross all television, is now very valid.
My Opinion Of The British Broadcasting Corporation
June 2010 by Colebox
The BBC, being publically funded, is quite a controversial subject and there are many valid arguments against its existence, and funding, in its current form; especially with the multi-platform, multi-channel media we have now. The BBC itself is a bloated corporation that is spreading itself too thinly and duplicates many services that the private sector is providing. It has also been paying over-the-top salaries for presenters and personalities. With its guaranteed £3.5 billion annual income can it not be better organised?
It sounds as it I'm against the BBC doesn't it. However, I am very pro-BBC and here's why:
In today's multi-channel media there are scores of channels that give us a template to what television would be like if it were all private sector. Channels like Virgin, Living, Sky, Hallmark, Bravo, etc show a vast majority of imports (nearly all from the US) and all on a constant loop of repeats. Many are even showing the same programmes; how many channels are broadcasting Star Trek in its various disguises? These channels have followed the style of the commercial radio stations where both appear to have a very small play-list. We used to complain about repeats on the BBC years ago; accross all channels it now seems to be the accepted norm.
There is constant irritating screen clutter on these channels too; when the BBC tried the same thing recently they, quite rightly, received thousands of complaints. It's nice to know that the public still expect better from the Beeb.
Without the BBC other channels wouldn't have to try as hard. All of the terestrial channels got into a bit of a rut in the late 90s/early 00s. It wasn't until the mid 00s that the BBC started to try and take a few chances with programming and ITV (the BBC's main rival) blatantly copied the hits. To give three examples: Doctor Who begat Primeval, Strictly Come Dancing begat Dancing On Ice and Life On Mars begat Lost In Austin. This is mainly because advertising revenue has nose-dived due to advertising being spread thinly, accross many stations rather than the traditional ITV/Channel 4/Five, and the recession hasn't helped matters either.
Due to the drop in advertising revenue (ITV and Channel 4 being the hardest hit), the private sector doesn't have a lot of money anymore (aside of subscription-based Sky) to try anything new or innovative; they rely on programmes that have been hits elsewhere (mainly, if not all, from the US) or a tried and tested (and tired) format trotted out time and time again (e.g. anything with phone-in revenue). Of course the BBC has its tired formats too - endless cookery - but it still has the innovation. ITV's big drama hits for 2009 were nearly all crime dramas.
British drama, under a wholly private sector, would become a rare treat rather than the norm; except for cheap soap operas. Sky treats its home-grown drama as major events but should be the norm. Cheap reality television is also King.
In a world where one is bombarded with advertising the BBC is a bit of a haven. ITV on the other hand is trying to increase its revenue as it now appears to be courting Product Placement. This isn't an issue on its own but it always bothers me when advertisers have a say in the programming. One example; around 2002 advertisers had ITV's The Bill turned into a Soap opera to attract more female viewers, and away from its over-fifties male audience, as it was deemed women had more money to spend.
You sometimes see that the viewer is not the main priority on commercial channels. Along with the annoying screen clutter there are often crude cut-offs for commercial breaks (e.g. ITV4's presentation is horriffic) and UKTV (Watch, Alibi, Gold) admitted, in the Radio Times recently, that programmes are often trimmed - sometimes taking out important plot sequences - for advert breaks and timing. To my knowledge, no other channel has a 'Points Of View' type programme other than the BBC.
As I've mentioned in a previous article, the BBC's postion allows it to show programmes that no other UK-based station would broadcast (with, maybe, the exception of Channel 4 in its more experimental days). I have really enjoyed the Swedish version of Wallander on BBC4 but I can't imagine a subtitled foreign-language programme ending up on ITV3, Virgin1 or Bravo. If they did, there would be a 'coming up next' banner over the subtitles at some point during the programme. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen: an ITV3 showing of The Incredible Hulk had a banner over subtitles translating the characters who were speaking Spanish.
Viewers can be at the mercy of the private sector. I have found Sky's business tactics in the past to be a bit - for want of a better word - naughty (although I will conceed that Sky's satellite system is excellent). Sky built its base by attracting all of the sports fans with a coverage of Premiership games and Sports events. Then it started to charge extra for certain sporting events. Hang on, hadn't Sky customers already paid for the sports channels? A similar situation occured with the film channels too. In addition, Sky's practice of poaching hits from other channels is a little underhand: Lost from Channel 4, 24 from BBC1 and Prison Break from 5. They then go on to advertise that Sky is the only place to see these series. Before they were poached, people without Sky were able to; it's a mean spirited practice.
Sky has an owner who also owns many newspapers; Television should always remain politically impartial.
Oh yes, the BBC makes Doctor Who. And Spooks.
In the future it will be harder and harder for the BBC to exist. It will either become a subscription station (and hugely scaled down) or get dismantled (i.e. sold off). When it does finally relent to the market/technological advancement of the media, Britain will, in time, regret its passing.
It's ITV's new flagship service, it's the World Cup 2010 and it's an England game and yet, somehow, ITV1 HD managed to go to an advert break right at the time England scored their first goal of the Tournament
Only in February did I comment on the curse of modern broadcasting: logos and banners. On Saturday 24th April, on BBC1, during Doctor Who this happened:
Quite rightly, this caused the BBC to receive thousands of complaints and we can just hope that these complaints can turn the tide against this advance of screen litter but I won't hold my breath. A small logo, such as BBC 4's, I can put up with; a garish multi-coloured banner accross the screen is unacceptable.
The trouble is, many of the cable, freeview and satellite stations have been using what's-coming-up-next banners for years. The only example I have from days-gone-by is the ITV3 repeat of Lawless in 2005:
Sadly, ITV used the same tactic during an episode of Primeval, in 2009, which spoilt the drama during Professor Cutter's death. No out pouring of complaints on this occasion and maybe this shows why television companies happily litter our screens like this: viewer apathy. However, crossing Doctor Who fans is something else.
As far as I'm concerned, this behaviour just shows contempt for the viewer by television executives. However, in the cases of Doctor Who and Primeval it also shows stupidity; make a flagship drama and, on its first showing, ruin it.
It has happened again. Two incomplete BBC series have been axed: Paradox and (rumoured) Survivors. Whether they were liked or not, the key word I want to draw your attention to is incomplete. They were meant to continue; there was more to come and, like this sentence, there was an end that...
I have covered this issue before when it happened to Primeval, last June, but in this case it got saved. The likelihood of a reprieve for Paradox or Survivors is minimal if at all.
If we are to see similar situations occur on a regular basis (three within a year makes it appear to becoming regular) then what are the consequences for the viewer? Do we take the risk of getting into a series with the thought, at the back of our minds, that we may never have an ending? If so, why bother with it in the first place?
What is the alternative? How about these: Make a series self-contained and don't end on a cliff-hanger or if a series is planned to run a story arc then give the production team a clue to the chances of its survival before they make the last episode, thus the writers can change things.
Echoing my sentiment from last July's blog; it always seems to be the Telefantasy stuff that suffers; only Doctor Who guaranteed survival (at present). The television landscape is littered with the bodies of half complete telefantasy series and this may kill off any new future telefantasy productions being risked. British TV will become the unimaginative Nineties all over again.
There has been a lot in the media recently about the BBC's funds and the cut-backs it has to make. One of the things that caused a little ripple was that less money is to be spent on American imported drama. Of course, this created a few comments about peoples' favourite US shows but I think that this is the right decision.
In fact, I believe that the Beeb shouldn't be buying any US imports at all and here's why:
There are plenty of other channels that are already stuffed to the brim with American imported drama. Channel 4, Five, ITV2, E4, More4 and Sky are probably the hightest profile ones. The Beeb may not, in the future, show as many US imports but there will still be plenty of other channels who will willingly pick up the programmes that the BBC would have shown.
It is all too easy for television stations to not bother making their own drama (Five, for example hasn't made any original drama for a number of years).
Many of the stations that have a schedule heavy with US drama only make cheap reality TV. Therefore, it is vital that the BBC make British drama as, although the popular belief that US drama is better than the UK's, we still have the likes of Doctor Who, Spooks, Waking The Dead, Merlin and Ashes To Ashes to be proud of. Who knows what is around the corner?
UK televison, apart from a few notable exceptions, ignores drama from the rest of the world (other than the US). No-one is showing us what the likes of Europe can do; exept, and quite rightly, the BBC. If anything, the imports that the BBC should show are the ones that no-one else will (or wants to i.e. would non-English speaking programmes be commercially viable?). I realise subtitles aren't popular but looking passed that we have seen that there is quality to be found in other places other than the US. Within the past three years, BBC4 has been showing the excellent French thriller series Spiral and the original Swedish version of Wallander; long may it continue to show programmes like this.
I'm not against US drama but showing us programming that no-one else will is what the BBC is supposed to be all about.
My all time favourite Police series is the BBC's Rockliffe's Babies from 1987-1988. I was lucky enough to have recorded all the episodes onto VHS but, due to the hap-hazard way I recorded them, I managed to loose the last three episodes of the second series. Thankfully, I had converted them all to VCD when I first got my Dazzle DVD Creator, before the tapes got lost:
Not brilliant but something exists. Of the episodes I have remaining, they have now been converted to DVD+/-R using much better equipment and giving me a much better picture quality:
But what of the lost episodes? Well, I managed to get some copies from when they were shown on Satellite/Cable. Nice quality but for two things; at the mercy of the person who encoded the original capture (a bit fussy, I know, but I would love to have a complete set looking like the picture above) and the curse of modern broadcasting: logos and banners:
At least I have something. Still, there is the possibility of a DVD release one day... ...please!
A new trailer so soon after the last special was broadcast, but this one is the trailer from Children In Need 2009 for the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special. Because David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor is coming to an end the anticipation is quite high; for us sad old Doctor Who fans at least.
It won't be that long until the proper trailer is broadcast along with this Christmas's BBC line-up.
After the major disappointment of the previous episode, "The Planet Of The Dead", I was really looking forward to "The Waters Of Mars"; the trailer (above) looked really good. Having said that, the trailer for "The Planet Of The Dead" was quite promising but, unlike TPOTD, TWOM did live up to its hype. Excellent stuff!
A superb performance by David Tennant as a Doctor, at first, prepared to abandon the desparate survivors on the Bowie Mars Base and then willing to go against the laws of time and hang the consequences - and the consequences slapping him in the face!
Let's hope that the Christmas specials can keep up this pace.
In July I was complaining that ITV had axed Primeval and it always seemed particularly to be the programmes that I liked that received premature axing.
However, Primeval has been saved by a consortium of ITV, BBC Worldwide and a German company called Pro 7.
Series four will premiere on ITV in early 2011 and series five on UKTV station Watch in late 2011, then series five will be repeated on ITV. What has surprised me is Watch's invlovement as the repeats of Primeval have been running on ITV 2 for the last couple of years rather than the satellite/cable station.
What with UKTV station Dave making a new Red Dwarf last Easter and now Watch having a hand in bringing back Primeval, is this signalling that UKTV stations might become involved in bringing back other programmes? What would I give to have more episodes of Strange made or Bugs brought back?
Could Alibi be planning to make a crime drama series or G.O.L.D. make some original comedy? I won't hold my breath, but you never know.
A few of my recent blogs have been a bit negative. So leaving aside the danger that I am becoming an old misery-guts; I have, recently, been very disappointed with the output of the BBC HD channel. It's choice of programming to give the Hi-Def treatment has been a little, shall we say, lacking in ambition. It does seem a very far cry from the dazzling spectacle of last Christmas's promotion (below) and the excellent use of Saliva's track "Ladies And Gentlmen".
Fair enough, there have been a few sparklers this year, Doctor Who (and more to come) and Torchwood, but some of the programmes being shown are not really giving Hi-Def the justice it deserves. Wildlife/Natural history deserve their place but the likes of Who Do You Think You Are? don't. Do Two people looking at an old Parish record really need to be in Hi-Def?
Admitedly, I appreciate that there is extra expense in making these programmes but can't the expense be brought over to the drama productions rather than day-time type programmes like Flog It or static shows like Dragon's Den?
But to try and be positive: now that Autumn is upon us, I hope that this situation will improve; after all the best television is traditionally reserved for this season (leading up to Christmas) and the Hi-Def to look forward too: Silent Witness, Doctor Who and Survivors. Any chance of getting Spooks added to that list?
In a recent article I was celebrating the fact that, now I had Virgin Media, I had the ability to watch some of the UKTV stations that I would have liked to have had a few years ago (UK Gold, UK Drama). Back in their day they would show programmes such as Shoestring, Rockliffe's Babies, Doctor Who, Blake's Seven, and other older shows on a regular basis.
However, since the stations became re-branded, Alibi, Watch, G.O.L.D., there is a tendancy to stick with a handfull of newer shows and show them in no proper order; series two of something one week; series seven the next.
I'm going to single out Alibi here and its heavy reliance on Waking The Dead, New Tricks and Dalziel And Pascoe. It is a shame because there are lots and lots of crime series that can be plundered from several decades but the reliance is with shows that were orignally broadcast no earlier than 1997! Admitedly, Shoestring was showing when I had my Virgin Media installed but this was a single run and showing at about 2pm; the same for Bergerac. Maybe I should keep my nerve as a wider variety of programmes are on their way.
I have enjoyed a few older episodes of Dalziel And Pascoe and Silent Witness but there is still the issue of the very poor bitrate. It really is far too low and watched on my Sony RDR-32D3000 LCD television it often shows up as a motion smeared mess. I've made some Video CDs in my time that play a better picture quality than that!
There are four favourite television series, within the past ten years (ish), that have had the axe fall upon them very prematurely: Bugs, Strange, Ultraviolet and Crime Traveller. The series that was treated the worst had to be Strange where, after one short series, the axe fell; the story hadn't been finished and it was left with the hero of the piece, John Strange, in Hospital, after being beaten up. Very poor scheduling didn't help its case either. The likelyhood of Strange ever being finished is highly unlikely now as Iain Richardson, who played Canon Black, has passed away.
Bugs was also ended leaving a never-to-be-resolved cliff-hanging ending but at least it enjoyed four series before the axe fell. Ultraviolet and Crime Traveller just didn't get the second series they deserved.
And now they've gone and done it again...
During June, ITV announced that Primeval will not be continued. And in the true spirit of the sort of series that I like, it has ended with a cliff-hanger that our heroes will never escape from and so many questions will be left unanswered: What were the anomolies? What happened to make Claudia Brown turn into Jenny Lewis? How did the Future Predators take over? Where did the Clone Army go? Where did they come from? etc etc...
The ending of a series before it can complete was something that US television used to do on a regular basis. This is a relatively rare thing in the UK and why does always seem to be the tellyfantasy stuff?
Says it all really! Ever since I saw The Wrong Trousers during Christmas 1991 I have loved Wallace And Gromit; the sheer detail of the models, the breathtakingly intricate animation, the innocence of our heroes, the thrills of the chases and the cleverness of the facial expressions. I can't think of anything to compare it to (why didn't I just say incomparable?)
I only found out that there was a new episode, A Matter Of Loaf And Death, during October on the BBC Press Office site; I didn't even know that a Wallace And Gromit was planned let alone finished and ready for transmission. However, that wasn't all. Wallace And Gromit were also the BBC's Christmas Ident for 2008. I will admit that the main sledge-over-the-edge ident did get a little tedious after a while, as the BBC were using nothing else. Having said that, I really missed it when Christmas was all over. Then there were the stings - those four/five second clips - which were lovely. I tried to capture them all, using my Seal Digital TV Dongle, but missed out on two of them. I did get them all thanks to You Tube but they are not the quality I would have liked but something is better than nothing.
As for A Matter Of Loaf And Death itself, I had one minor disappointment at a lack of the trademark chase sequence done so well in The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. But I'm just nit-picking as it was the usual excellent standard (and having to watch it several times to catch all of the sight gags) but this time it was a little darker than before - people actually died! Hang on: a trip to the moon, a diamond robbery, Sheep rustling, turning into a Were-Rabbit but now a serial killer! No warning in the Radio Times over the brief nudity either.
I dearly hope that a Matter Of Loaf And Death isn't the last of Wallace And Gromit: four television episodes, a movie and the Cracking Contraptions shorts are not a lot of screen time for twenty years. Please, please don't let that be all.
Oh yes, here's hoping that they put the 2008 idents and the stings as extras on the DVD release. Would I be hoping too much for the Cream Crackers and PG Tipps's adverts too?
...well, if you believe many of the views and comments in the press, web and your friends and colleagues, then nearly everyone does. Even some of the actors themselves. Not me though.
It is true that there is an over-use of cheap reality TV and Soaps; I despise Big Brother with a passion as it represents all that is wrong with today's TV and maybe even society as a whole - those who don't like it are not allowed to escape it. The trouble with these programmes is that they create 'celebrities' that get plastered all over the place. You nearly have to be in a coma to avoid them. The Apprentice isn't much better here either.
In this respect Channel 4 should be singled out. When it first started it used to have an imaginative diversity of programmes. Now it's all Big Brother and home improvement programmes.
I will admit that, in general, British television was dull as diswater in the mid-90s. No diverstiy at all and certainly no telefantasy; it seemed almost a dirty word! Any that did exist was imported: Star Trek: the Next Generation, Babylon 5 and The X-Files. There were two notable exceptions back then: Bugs (which I loved) and Channel 4's amazing Ultraviolet. Apart from that I am hard pushed to think of anymore aside from Red Dwarf but this famously was ordered not to include science fiction story-lines in its first series and a single series of Crime Traveller. Back then it realy was the cliche of Hospitals and Detective dramas. But, in the 00s, things have got better.
For me, the turning point was Christmas 2001 when one of the BBC's big dramas for the festive period was The Lost World (shown last month on BBC4). It was cinematic fantasy television and was an excellent piece. Sadly, it was beaten in the ratings by ITV's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which was on every night of the week back then! It seemed that all was lost for telefantasy again; people didn't want it. Well, bar a re-make of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) but this was personality led by Reeves and Mortimer so doesn't count!
But were things realy lost? Another two toes in the water were the series Strange and Sea Of Souls. Strange didn't get treated very well in the schedules and was cancelled leaving the story in mid-air. Very poor of the BBC! Sea Of Souls, on the other hand, managed three series and an episode of a supernatural anthology series. ITV even dabbled a couple of years previously with its bleak The Last Train and a few later with Afterlife.
But then Doctor Who made a stunning return in 2005 and this has really changed the face of British telefantasy. Definitly fuelled by a nostalgia it was hugely successful and has brought back to British television not only further telefantasy but the family drama.
So, on the heels of the success of Doctor Who - and I honestly believe that these wouldn't have been made without it - came ITV's enjoyable romp Primeval (those who think Primeval is better, okay, but they have to accept it wouldn't have happened without Doctor Who), Jekyl, Frankenstein, Robin Hood and the up and coming Merlin, and re-makes of Survivors, The Prisoner and a up-dating of Blake's Seven on Sky.
And the point of all this: the last episode of series 4 of Doctor Who (and the best yet), Journey's End, was rated the number 1 most watched show of that week. Telefantasy is tops!
I got my Freesat box just in time for the start of Euro 2008. Okay, there are no Home Nations involved but this has still been an entertaining competition especially as all of the games have been broadcast on High Definition. I am very pleased with the performance of the picture on BBC HD.
For this same competition, ITV HD has also launched. However, this is not a separate channel and is accessed through the red button route on the normal ITV 1 channel. Now this method is okay BUT there is an issue with ITV HD that BBC HD doesn't have a problem with and that is the signal.
BBC HD's signal is at full strength, according to the Humax settings, but ITV HD's signal is all over the place. The result of this is that the sound cuts out for a few seconds every twenty minutes or so and, on the first broadcast I watched, the picture froze or completely broke up a few times. This isn't such a problem with a football match but would be a nuisance when watching any other type of programme like a film or drama as some vital piece of dialogue could be lost.
How did I miss the build up to this? Here I have been for the last couple of months going on about High Definition content on disc and just around the corner was the very quiet launch of a new free-to-air platform, called Freesat, which will feature High Definition channels. Initially just the one, BBC HD, but more to be added soon.
I have a satellite dish on the side of my new house, which up until recently was only being used by some birds to nest in, but I don't have Sky. I wondered if this dish can be used for Freesat. From what I have read on the net, if it is pointing in the right direction, then yes. So I may be treating my self to one of these boxes very soon.
Currently the Humax one seems to have the best net reviews, on blogs etc. I was a little disapointed to see that it was the usual suspects that have got the first boxes out. One name that filled me with dread was Grundig. I had one of their first Freeview boxes and it was an appalling thing - having said that, it was one of the very first out.
This leads me into wondering if getting a Freesat box now would be a mistake as some of the better brands may launch their own boxes. Would I be shelling out for a Freesat version of the superb Sony VTX-D800U if it ever appears?
However, will Freesat be redundant in a couple of years' time when proposed Terrestrial transmissions of High Definition channels begin and I end up having to buy yet another set top box?
Let's see what Freesat can do for us first; watch this space; maybe...
Digital TV: It's Good, But It's Not All It's Cracked Up To Be!
January 2007 by Colebox
I have moved over to digital television and have done so for about three years now. The vast majority of my new DVD recordings are now via the digital platform. In a couple of years time the analouge transmitters will be turned off leaving the only free-to-air transmissions digital televison.
Digital television has a lot going for it: improved picture quality (ah... maybe not; see further on), more stations, improved reception (again, maybe not; see further on), and widescreen at 16:9.
However, there is something that was better with the old system: the actual picture. The definition of an analogue picture (in a good reception area) is much more detailed than that of the newer digital. Not convinced? If you are reading this before the great switch off then compare the two pictures during a televised football match. Case proven, M'lud
The bit-rate for many of the digital stations is far too low (and over compressed) and this is the reason that you see the picture become blocky. Basically, there are too many stations (and most of them drivel) squeezed onto the digital platform. One hopes that more space will become available when the analogue switch-off happens, but I won't hold my breath.
Admitedly, one of the reasons that I moved to digital was that where I lived my ananlogue picture was ghosting (and I must mention I very much wanted to view widescreen television) and the reception of digital is better than analogue in my area, but I don't recall my analogue signal exploding into a pile of blocks everytime my fridge and heating's thermostat switched on and off. Every Tuesday I watch Holby City (yes, I admit it) and at about 8.20pm someone somewhere is using an electrical item which obliterates my digital picture for about five minutes. Is it a door bell, a cabbie radio-ing back after a regular pick-up or what? I will probably never find out. Digital reception maybe better over-all but, the trouble is, it is a bit too sensitive to intereference.
Let's hope that the next generation of television - Hi-Definition - is acutally an improvement on things and not, as digital has been, an improvement on some things and a step back on others.
