Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It is in the main woeful.
It could be that the mindset of the commissioning bods is askew and as such good writers are forced to write poorly to suit?
But to purposely write that bad you would have to be really good and that for me sums up the Beeb at this moment in time, we know they can be brilliant, but they seemed to have either stopped or got lost.
I don't disagree there's a problem with commissioning, Teddy, but you seem hellbent on making it a class-war between the middle-classes and the working-classes. Which I'm not convinced by.
Not at all, but where's the edge? Why do the BBC insist on creating sitcoms that look and feel like Ladybird Books or sound like something put together by the World Service and has been designed to show the society they would like us to live in and not necessarily the one we actually live in.
I just don't see how things like My Family, Life Of Riley or Miranda got through?
Miranda can be funny as a person, but her am dram shop and the pop ins from her socialite mother and her old dormitory friends alongside predictable plots is mind numbing.
Miranda was very very popular. There is something comforting in proscenium arch style sitcom that large numbers of people enjoy. My favourite sitcom of recent years was Curb etc... and that is I guess pretty Middle CLass. Edgy shows almost by definition are never going to be mainstream. Can happen sometimes and then that changes the paradigm I guess, but Sitcom isn't really a genre - it contains a whole lot of different genres. That the creatives don't get the final say anymore at the BBC is probably at the heart of the points you are making.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ June 28 2011, 3:26 PM BSTNot at all, but where's the edge? Why do the BBC insist on creating sitcoms that look and feel like Ladybird Books or sound like something put together by the World Service and has been designed to show the society they would like us to live in and not necessarily the one we actually live in.
I just don't see how things like My Family, Life Of Riley or Miranda got through?
Miranda can be funny as a person, but her am dram shop and the pop ins from her socialite mother and her old dormitory friends alongside predictable plots is mind numbing.
But you're concentrating on one specific type of sitcom, the pre-watershed stuff. We also have The Thick Of It and Getting On, to name but two current BBC shows, with grit coming out of their eyeballs.
Again, I agree that the pre-watershed shows are largely poor, but I think that's down to fear and the desire to play it safe. Television is increasingly low to no-risk.
Quote: Marc P @ June 28 2011, 3:31 PM BSTEdgy shows almost by definition are never going to be mainstream.
I think that is the accepted industry wisdom, but most of the big audience family viewing sitcoms of the past had a darnsight more edge than the Life of Riley.
A banana has more edge than LOR!
Watershed! They are facing competition from the internet, I'm not advocating everyone taking their kit off at tea time, but a mum in the Volvo taking a loveable mop to scouts and the darling to gymkhana and having a wacky incident with a jobsworth traffic warden is not going to tax anyone's thought process.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ June 28 2011, 6:07 PM BSTWatershed! They are facing competition from the internet, I'm not advocating everyone taking their kit off at tea time, but a mum in the Volvo taking a loveable mop to scouts and the darling to gymkhana and having a wacky incident with a jobsworth traffic warden is not going to tax anyone's thought process.
I'm not sure the Internet is quite the cornucopia of riches that you think it is.
Quote: chipolata @ June 28 2011, 6:11 PM BSTI'm not sure the Internet is quite the cornucopia of riches that you think it is.
I'm certain that it isn't.
No it's not, but it will be, there is spark verve and material all over the place, so how long before it comes to together and replaces its rival?
Look I have an avatar!
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ June 28 2011, 6:17 PM BSTNo it's not, but it will be, there is spark verve and material all over the place, so how long before it comes to together and replaces its rival?
As soon as the production companies work out a proper revenue model to 'broadcast' programmes online.
I.e. the twelfth of never.
If the internet and Twitter can bring down oppressive regimes, I should imagine circumventing a corporation of nitwits and Luddites should be a doddle.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ June 28 2011, 7:10 PM BSTIf the internet and Twitter can bring down oppressive regimes
Extremely debatable.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ June 28 2011, 7:10 PM BSTI should imagine circumventing a corporation of nitwits and Luddites should be a doddle.
Different kettle of fish altogether. Protest takes little to no ingenuity or creative talent.
There is a painting in the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool of a Roman Centurion entitled 'Faithful Unto Death' by Sir Edward John Poynter.
It portrays a sentry who refuses to leave his post despite the fall of Pompeii.
He clings on to the only order he knows as he can not compute the concept that his vision of order has been superseded by a natural force that he had been aware of but dismissed.
Now I thought that was creative and I'm a protester.