Am I the only person on the planet who gets pissed off every time I hear a Nokia phone's distinctive ring tone from the TV? Even when it isn't the one my phone is set to I still jump up and start looking for the damned thing. TV producers need to find the audio equivalent of "555" ...
Meanwhile there's something else about TV that's been bugging me recently. As an unemployable unemployed person I have a greater degree of access to daytime TV than is probably good for me. Mostly I don't actually watch it ... it's just
on in the background ... mostly because my TV set is behind me as I sit here at my PC.
I have to say that when heard and not seen, current British TV programme making values have gone down the toilet ... and I blame it all on Blue Peter. OK now you expect me to justify that ....
Prgramme Scenario
Fresh faced non-entity with chirpy manner arrives at a non-descript suburban home. Inside we meet Mr and Mrs Average who are either
- eager to get on TV but not eager enough for Jerry Springer style experience
- to dumb for Countdown and too lairy for The Weakest Link
- so mean that they really will sell grandad's war medals to raise a piffling couple of grand for their daughter's wedding/big family holiday/new kitchen/wife's boob job
- ... or else they actually are that stupid they need help finding out they own 'some stuff'.
Two more non-entities - "experts" - appear and ransack Mr and Mrs's A's home. Quite where their field of expertise lays is anyone's guess ... but one thing
is certain; dear old Mr and Mrs A will be found in possession of an astonishingly large number of
Clarice Cliffe crocks or else a whole attic-full of 1950's toys still in original packaging ... or both.
The tedium escalates. The show adjourns to the sale rooms where Mr and Mrs A's 'treasures' go under the auctioneer's hammer. (How on earth did someone actually think this would be entertaining?) Undeterred non-entity numbero uno, narrates the whole fucking auction in the the most pretentiously paternalistic style you could imagine but imagine Blue peter presenters narrating their annual safari to Kenya with Princess Anne and you're getting the picture ... it was OK when you were 10 ... not so good when 40 is but a fond memory. Meanwhile ... lots one to four all go for excellent prices well above the "experts" valuation then lot #5 valued at £80 goes for £75 and non-entity is trying far too hard to make it interesting and I'm just thinking I couldn't care less.
It used to be the case that TV could accurately be described as "radio with pictures", which if you stop to think about it isn't really a negative comment. All has now changed. TV is now pictures with radio and that
is a very bad thing. It is true that a picture
can be worth a thousand words and that is what TV should be a significant augmentation to that which sound-only media can achieve. It ain't doing it though.
A far worse example is parlous state of the modern documentary ... they can 'look' pretty good on the trails but in reality they are merely radio programs with an unlovely slideshow. Such stuff makes a mockery of both the medium and the audience. To substitute "filmed-action" scenes which might actually enhance and improve the narrative with stupid, out of focus 'generic' stock images is lazy and insulting. In most cases a story can be better illustrated by a good entertainer, a few toy soldiers and a tray of sand. Anyone else remember
Michael Bentine's talent for recreating epics in a sandbox? There's a moral here somehwere ...
<< Home