Would I Miss TV If It Wasn't There?

[poliphilo]

We had an electrician here yesterday installing a digital aerial for us- a sizeable one-off expense which frees us from paying rent to the cable company. We are on a mission to simplify our life-style and save money.

I wonder sometimes whether I could live without TV altogether. Well of course I could, but would I want to? Would I miss it if it wasn't there?

I put it on in the evenings for the company and then switch it off again because it has nothing interesting to say. I like watching programmes about antique dealers while I'm eating my lunch and I follow the news (though I know I'm being lied to and misled). Last night I watched an old episode of Dad's Army (Has nobody noticed how predictable and relentlessly unfunny it is?) and part of a dreary, self-congratulatory tribute to the producer Bill Cotton (who brought us a slew of much loved, predictable and relentlessly unfunny shows but didn't understand Monty Python). I noticed there was going to be a tribute afterwards to Ken Russell and- suspecting it would be more of the same- a mix of clips and anecdotes about what a boozy old devil he was- decided I'd be better off curling up in my chair with Charlotte Bronte. I already know more about Ken Russell than any TV documentary is likely to be able to tell me because I've watched the movies. How can you know an artist except by engaging with the art? TV has nurtured one or two bona fide geniuses in its day. Russell was one, Denis Potter was another.The BBC ought to have a channel dedicated to streaming their work. Is there anyone who matches them today? Suggestions please.

What about appointment TV? At the moment the only thing I'm excited about is Sherlock. I'm looking forward to the screening of the final episode tonight. I caught the second part of the much-praised dramatisation of Edwin Drood and thought it perfunctory. Is there anything else I'm looking forward to? The return of Dr Who? Not as much as before. I see there's a big deal dramatisation of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong in the pipeline. Hated the book, expect to hate the TV version. We're also promised a dramatisation of Parade's End- written by Tom Stoppard, no less. Loved the book, might quite like the TV version. But, actually, I'm getting a little tired of the trenches. Been there, done that, bought the poppy. Tell me something I don't know. Please.

I have friends who have the TV running all day long. That's awful. I have other friends who don't even own a set. Given the choice- TV all the time and TV never- I'd plump unhesitatingly for the later. 

I have lived without TV. It was when I was at my lowest ebb- divorced, broke, living just this side of squalor. Instead of sitting in front of the box I sat at the kitchen table and painted little pictures. I got a TV in the end because my ex-wife told me I was blighting my children's lives and they didn't want to spend their weekends with me. After I got one she said I was letting them watch it too much.

No, I wouldn't want to be without.  I do seriously want to catch Sherlock while its still warm from the oven. Every so often I'll watch a documentary that tells me interesting things. I'd miss the antique dealers. Otherwise TV's a pacifier.  There are times when I'm too tired for Bronte and only the life and times of Bill Cotton will do. 

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Himself has taken over the TV so I see nothing but Big Bang Theory reruns for the most part, which is fine. However I suspect if you're getting trench fatigue you are going to have to crawl under a rock for the next few years since the centenary of WWI is coming up.

I have ranted before on rosamicula's journal about Birdsong. The sex scenes at the beginning were really cringy. I am a fan of erotic writing that is well done but it is very hard to pull off (yes I know there are two double entendres in that sentence.) Describing someone's tongue near someone else's c*** as "lambent" is eugh-inducing. He does realise he's talking about fire, right? Do I want my bits on fire? Do I ****. It just all reads like a bit of a wank fantasy really. Then there's the protag - I *cannot* get a purchase on him at all. He doesn't have context and background. I suspect he's a thinly-disguised version of the author which is fine, we've all done that, but why doesn't he thicken the disguise just a little bit.

Battle scenes are good, though he makes the common error of having his hero in the thick of *everything* and always doing something heroic or resourceful. I note that's a common error among male writers of First World War novels, apart from Sebastian Barry, whose portrait might be more nuanced because being Irish he knows the whole thing is a bit complicated. ETA. No, I'm wrong, as the other writer I'm thinking of who committed the same folly is called Alan Monaghan and he's an Irish guy. So it must be something else then.

The problem with a lot of the WWI stuff is that there is a Known Checklist and every novel or dramatisation has to go tick tick tick and make sure the Items on the Checklist are all Done.

And finally on Birdsong - why on earth does Faulks add a preface to a later edition describing his great methods. He's not a great novelist, he hasn't written something sublime and he overestimates his own greatness (he is a *good* novelist at times, he should not be denied that, but not a great one.)

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

How can you know an artist except by engaging with the art? TV has nurtured one or two bona fide geniuses in its day. Russell was one, Denis Potter was another.

I watched the Russell documentary. He engaged with art by making films about artists. If I was twenty years younger, and thus less likely to have seen his films I'd have been inspired by it to watch other stuff. I learnt a huge amount, as a child in a book-filled, but intelelctually limited home, by watching programmes like that, and World in Action and so forth.

wardytron and I both watched part of the Billy Cotton thing that focused on 'Eric and Ernie'. Andrew is very nostalgic about that era, that kind of TV. I'm not. I am nostalgic, though, about the time when there were just three (or four) channels. I think there was a benefit to having huge national, trivial, shared cultural experiences (35 million+ for a Morcambe and Wise Christmas show). For a start, a lot of the kids I taught would speak much better English, as would some of their parents, especially the mothers.

I can't make my mind up about Sherlock. And I've got the 'new' novel to read.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hated that sex scene. It rings false in every way. Apart from anything else it's not Edwardian. Did Edwardians go for cunnilingus on a first date? I don't think so.

I forget the protagonist. I couldn't tell you his name or anything about him.

As for the war stuff- all I remember is that some guys get trapped underground. There's a mine they've laid. Does it go bang? I forget. Oh, yes and our hero meets a Jewish German soldier and it's ever so meaningful.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Russell's films about artists are in a class of their own. Impassioned, wildly inventive, wholly devoid of BBC balance. I'm old enough to have seen a lot of his TV work at the time it was first broadcast. I adored it then and I adore it now. One of these days we're going to wake up to what a great artist he was.

I'm routinely disappointed by re-runs of shows from the Cotton era. I found them funny once; I don't find them funny now. Eric and Ernie are often woefully slack and flabby. The Two Ronnies make me squirm with their philistinism and misogyny. Dad's Army is cherishable for its performances, but it's not the least bit funny.

Sherlock gives me an adrenaline rush. The quality of the scripts is variable.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd never ever read any Charlotte before- if you can believe it- in spite of having a degree in Eng Lit and all that. Suddenly I'm in love.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, I figured I already knew the plot, so I'd start somewhere else. I chose Villette (which some critics think her masterpiece) It's fascinating- the story of a bunch of fairly ordinary people leading quiet, uneventful, mid-19th century lives, but with all this passion and weirdness boiling away below the surface..

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Cumberbatch looks like a horse- but a very beautiful horse, obviously.

We've reached a stage where the reality of WWI is hidden from us by fictions derived from fictions derived from fictions.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

I understand it's never been filmed- not even by the BBC. What an oversight!

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I don't actually "watch" television anymore. As in, I never sit down at a program's scheduled time and watch it. My schedule is such that the few programs I would enjoy (and there are so, so few of them these days) are on after I am in bed.

If I think I might like a program based on what my friends are saying, I check out an episode or two (you can almost always find an older episode online somewhere), and if I like it? I simply start buying the seasons on DVD. Thus is the reason why I own the boxed sets for Hustle, Criminal Minds, Bones, and am now starting The Mentalist. This lets me watch the programs when I want, on my own time (I do it while exercising).

Most of American TV these days is garbage reality TV. I didn't like it when it first began, and nothing has improved it, in my mind, to make me want to watch it.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I have Freeview, which doesn't cost anything - but I've more or less caught up with things I missed through not owning a TV for long periods - two sets of ten years
My parents watched the first series of Dad's Army - my father was in a reserved occupation, so joined the Home Guard, or was a Warden - not sure which - he said that the tension between the two was quite authentic in some places

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The thing I like best about Dad's Army- apart from the wonderful Arthur Lowe- is the theme song. It sounds like a genuine war-time ditty. It was a stroke of inspiration to get Bud Flanagan in to sing it.

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

Funny, I don't remember watching TV at all in Brompton street (that's the right street, yes?). What did we do, then? I remember collecting Kinder egg toys. Some local kids put itchy fiber glass down me and Joe's backs. Hmm. I threw up spinach all over the floor. We played Cluedo a lot? Good times ;)

We don't watch live TV here either. If you dislike UK TV as dross you'd despise what's on Japanese, even if you could understand. Half of the evening's programming are variety shows where a cadre of 'talent' sit on the stage and watch odd little videos- basically stuff from Youtube, and react. We watch them react- which is always includes an inane amount of gurning. The other half is food-tasting programs (hardly ever food-cooking, though) where 'talents' will taste something and scream out "delicious!" in a variety of different ways- to great effect.

And some emotional dramas in the day-time for the house-wives.

We do the DVD box set thing now, or download torrents of Uk/US shows.

As for not having a TV, I went without in my first year in Japan. I guess I was sick of TV, felt I'd seen all I cared to for the time being, and the total immersion in Japan gave me lots of new stimulus anyway. Well, for around a year. After the year was up, I found myself getting sick of my own thoughts, and started getting back into watching movies and TV just to shuffle it around a bit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We certainly didn't have a TV in Brompton St, but I don't think we had one at Belgrave Rd either after Chris moved out. Yes, we must have played a lot of board games. We also played Dungeons and Dragons.

The Brompton Rd interlude was fairly short. I took that place so I could host you guys at weekends whilst Chris got her shit together and acquired a place of her own. As soon as she was gone I moved back in. I was able to do that because Grandpa Grist (thank you, John) purchased her half of the property (and later gave it back to me as a wedding present).

I don't understand food shows. What's the point of watching other people eat?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched television since December of 2008. It remains one of the best decisions of my life.