Question: What the hell happened to British TV?

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Question: What the hell happened to British TV?

by Professor-Robot @ 2009-07-09 – 14:47:34

Can you name a recent british TV series which was great? Which had great single moments? Forget about comedies for a second, BBC and ITV haven't come up with a decent series in years. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything.
wardda says "Life on Mars". Sure I'll go with that. Though I feel it didn't quite hit the heights it was very brave, especially the finale, and showed how we the british public were gasping for a breath of fresh air.
Dead Set was fantastic, written by the equally fantastic Charlie Brooker.
I'm not talking TV movies which are broken into 3 episodes. I'm talking a proper series. 6 episodes is slim but can be all you need.
Where are the glory days of ITC? Man in a suitcase, Randall and Hopkirk (deceased) and of course The Prisoner were a few of a litany of great shows from the sixties onwards. Before demographic catering they bred well.

So, can you name a recent british TV series which was great?
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7 Comments to Question: What the hell happened to British TV?

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- SeasideMan ^Pro
- 2009-07-09 @ 15:15:05
Peep Show.
- - Professor-Robot
  - 2009-07-09 @ 21:10:55
  Peep Show is good I agree, but yeah it's a comedy. While it can delight with pristine timing a comedy generally lacks those jaw dropping moments. Those ones where you can't speak, only exhale like a doofus.
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- wardda
- 2009-07-09 @ 15:59:46
I'm just getting into Peep show but it is a comedy. We can still do comedies, but dramatic series?
Other than Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes I can't think of a British TV show I have to watch or I have to record. Both are good shows but nothing when compared to say the Wire or Battlestar Galactica.(Yes a sci fi show in a discussion about serious drama, if you've watched it you'll know)
BBC do very little other than period dramas which they do well but in my opinion are all much the same.
We just don't have the budgets for quality drama or maybe even the imagination.
My wife watches Waking the dead which i've also tried to watch but it's an incredibly annoying show. Trevor Eve just shouts and the whole show is an attempt at CSI UK. I don't watch spooks so I can't really comment but it doesn't look great. A little silly.
ITV just can't make a good show unless Harry Hill is involved and I'm not sure he's suited to Drama.
BBC are to occupied with the period piece instead of looking for some modern inspiration, BBC3 maybe a good place to look but they concentrate mainly on comedy as apparently that's all young people care about.
I don't know what Channel 4 are playing at these days, occaisionly you get a gem but I can't think of a good drama they've produced recently.(The Devils Whore was good but more of a TV movie cut into 3 parts)
It's difficult to compare the US to the UK. The US produce some awful shows but in recent years have produced a lot of quality. Obviously advertising is bigger business in the US, revenues are huge compared to the UK but you also have channels like HBO that are subscription based so don't rely on advitisors. This free's them up to create some great TV.
Unfortunately I don't see a PPV channel working in the UK like is does in the US, There just isn't a big enough audience to get the number of subscriptions required for the budgets needed these days.

It's a sad thing to say but I don't know where British TV is headed, advertising revenue is down, BBC is having to share the license fee which they claim isn't enough any way so what hope is there?

P.S excuse any spelling mistakes in this, there's no spell checker and I'm writing in a rush.)
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- thecinefiles
- 2009-07-11 @ 23:28:28
State of Play is as good as second level US TV. Seriously, it's great.
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- tylluanpenry
- 2009-07-14 @ 15:33:27
I’ve enjoyed your post and put up a link to it on my recommended blogs page here: http://tylluansrecommendedblogs.blog.co.uk/
The idea is to encourage my blog friends to visit new blogs and generally get blogland moving a bit.
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- mattk
- 2009-07-15 @ 14:24:24
Dead Set was brilliant. Other than that, I'm really struggling. I tried watching Life On Mars several times but it bored the pants off me - might have sounded good on paper (as football managers say) but in practice I wasn't impressed.
- - Professor-Robot
  - 2009-07-17 @ 14:15:17
  I hear you about Life on Mars. I wanted it to be better than I thought it was. The final sequences in it though. Great payoff.
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