BBC Four

Britcom graveyard

Shut it down, people

(Looks at the schedule) Jesus. It used to be the highbrow channel, what happened?

it's this week only, probably a birthday thing

i'm sure it was happening last week too?

no, it looks normal (he says, digging the listings mag out of the recycling). there were two episodes of ever decreasing circles on the Tuesday but that was it.

there have been a lot of story ville documentaries recently, or maybe I've just been catching up with them. the Herzog one about volcanologists was last week and i watched one about midwives.

Friday Night Music nights are just terrible now, an hour of 70s variety performances (they have done Cilla Black, twice!) then two TOTP (ok this bit is good) then one of the 20 or so music documentaries they seem to cycle through, then a dull/predictable clip show, then a live film (which never seems to be any good, they had a 2-hour Status Quo concert from 2010 a few months ago for example - two hours! from 2010!) - I know they are operating under tight restrictions and barebones staff, but with their resources & library it's ridiculous that they can't put something better together.

the wretched schedule on bbc 4 wouldn't be so bad if the rare good stuff they occasionally play was up on i-player for more than just a month. For example The Roads to Freedom that was broadcast a couple of months ago is back to not existing anymore.

I was looking forward to getting around to watching that… one day.

I guess tricky licensing issues with older stuff.

BBC Four reshowing the Amis/Finney/folk horror Green Man from tomorrow:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p031d01y?fbclid=IwAR372ZVTKpQMhfcblAPrPuvV3x1PRttfKW5SR_1bO35ptcC1cdeHSR7lYJg

caught a bit of Schama's History of Britain in passing last night and i'm sure i've noticed and been annoyed by it before but the big melty dope repeats the "rule of thumb" myth as if it was a true fact and were i in a shouting mood i would have shouted at him that he's supposed to be a fucking academic ffs

his basic shtick is tarting up trite cliched cack and passing it off as insightful. The Two Winstons episode from History of Britain was really bad. I hate to think there might be young people who are having their knowledge of history shaped by this pillock! But on the other hand it's probably still better a lot of the other shite they've put out in the last decade.

The last thing I saw him in was that ego trip of a series where he basically put himself in the middle of various 20th century events.

where he compared brexit to the nazi invasion of czechoslovakia, obv just making this up but you never know.

replacing the Saturday night foreign drama with Glastonbury is one thing, it being the manic Street Preachers is twisting the knife.

anyway, Beck back next week (and I'm watching the French thing from More 4 which is her from Crimson Rivers sneaking around so I'm ok for the moment)

Yes Minister is lazily written Tory bullshit and its status as an alleged classic is rubbish