Monday, January 17, 2005
YES, TELEVISION IS RUBBISH
Well, so I went away for a couple of days and “forgot” to take enough work with me, so I had plentiful time to watch the box. It was a fairly sobering experience I can tell you. Here are two samples of what caught my ire:
-Newsnight Review: One of the topic’s was an exhibition of pre-Ottoman Turkish culture. For sure it looked interesting and beautiful and all, but that’s not really the point though. They all just sat around fawning at how great and fanstastic and everything it all was and saying how the “American neocon Christian right” and assorted other baddies should look at this and be ashamed and change course (presumeably because Ossama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein present the continuation of the greatest traditions of Islamic-Turkish civilization; or what?). Anyways, the point I’d have to make about this is that there was a consensus on the whole issue by all the pannelists. I mean what is the point of having a “debate” in which everyone agrees on everything? Ok, so in the age of political correctness I didn’t really expect anyone to say “Yes, the Turks incorporated all the best of the Christian cultures they found in the lands they had newly conquered and then they expelled and exterminated those Christians”; or perhaps more mildly “This show is purely being put on for political reasons to boost Turkey’s drive to enter the European Union by getting it some positive cultural press”.
In sum a pointless programme really.
-Ultimate Force: What on earth was this? Now look, I like a good Army action flick as much as the next guy, but somehow it just got everything wrong: the acting, the politics, the fighting. Actually coming to think of it, that’s a little unfair. All of these aspects were right, but just not quite wholesome yet. It’s like somebody handed in the script and said, “oh, something roughly like this, but I need mor time to finish it”, and the producers said, “Nah, it’ll be fine. Nobody cares to have a good quality British army action series”. Well I would. Disappointing, though like all the above programmes I’ll probably be mindless enough to watch it again at the next opportunity (that being next week).
Well that’s enough moaning for now.
On the plus side . . .
I finally got round to watching the videotaped first part of the BBC2 series on Auschwitz, which I can can so far only recommend; well put together and the dramatisations are sensible instead of their normal habit of distracting from the issue and looking silly at the same time. I’m looking forward to seeing how the series will go from here.
Well, so I went away for a couple of days and “forgot” to take enough work with me, so I had plentiful time to watch the box. It was a fairly sobering experience I can tell you. Here are two samples of what caught my ire:
-Newsnight Review: One of the topic’s was an exhibition of pre-Ottoman Turkish culture. For sure it looked interesting and beautiful and all, but that’s not really the point though. They all just sat around fawning at how great and fanstastic and everything it all was and saying how the “American neocon Christian right” and assorted other baddies should look at this and be ashamed and change course (presumeably because Ossama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein present the continuation of the greatest traditions of Islamic-Turkish civilization; or what?). Anyways, the point I’d have to make about this is that there was a consensus on the whole issue by all the pannelists. I mean what is the point of having a “debate” in which everyone agrees on everything? Ok, so in the age of political correctness I didn’t really expect anyone to say “Yes, the Turks incorporated all the best of the Christian cultures they found in the lands they had newly conquered and then they expelled and exterminated those Christians”; or perhaps more mildly “This show is purely being put on for political reasons to boost Turkey’s drive to enter the European Union by getting it some positive cultural press”.
In sum a pointless programme really.
-Ultimate Force: What on earth was this? Now look, I like a good Army action flick as much as the next guy, but somehow it just got everything wrong: the acting, the politics, the fighting. Actually coming to think of it, that’s a little unfair. All of these aspects were right, but just not quite wholesome yet. It’s like somebody handed in the script and said, “oh, something roughly like this, but I need mor time to finish it”, and the producers said, “Nah, it’ll be fine. Nobody cares to have a good quality British army action series”. Well I would. Disappointing, though like all the above programmes I’ll probably be mindless enough to watch it again at the next opportunity (that being next week).
Well that’s enough moaning for now.
On the plus side . . .
I finally got round to watching the videotaped first part of the BBC2 series on Auschwitz, which I can can so far only recommend; well put together and the dramatisations are sensible instead of their normal habit of distracting from the issue and looking silly at the same time. I’m looking forward to seeing how the series will go from here.
Labels: history, Islam, media, terrorism, Turkey
