Programmes that have aged poorly and programmes that have aged well?

It’s more recent than a lot of previously-mentioned programmes, but Teachers really hasn’t aged well.

The year of the Brexit vote and Trump's first election... he may have had a point.

Reboots rarely seem to be successful in any case.

Don't think anyone has mentioned Drop the Dead Donkey yet? So very much of its time (90s) yet the characters and situations still ring true today. It was always intended to be ultra topical so it would be surprising if it hadn't aged. But all the scandals from government corruption and Robert Maxwell to wars in the Gulf are scarily familiar. If you lived through those times then it's so nostalgic to be reminded of for example the NUJ posters calling for the release of John McCarthy.

They did a DTDD reboot a couple of years ago that toured theatres round the country. It was well worth seeing. Surprisingly poignant at the end when the Damian Day character speaks out about AI and lack of trust in the media. Trouble with 2026 is that it's beyond parody....

There was a remake of Yes Minister in the 2010s, and they got David Haig (lead frustrated copper in Thin Blue Line) and Henry Goodman in as Hacker and Appleby.

This, mind you was in the aftermath of The Thick of It and it just looked... Strangely dated. There was a lot of stuff about EU regulations from what I saw.

Infamously Armando Ianucci won't redo TTOI BC since 2016 satire is pointless

This take on the bisexual episode bothers me too - while Carrie's feelings might be 'old-fashioned' or whatever, she doesn't owe anyone a date, sex, or anything! You're allowed to be as discriminatory as you like imo when it comes to sex.

I love ER and it's currently on Netflix so I'm rewatching.

I've also just watched The Pitt, and it's really interesting how the medicine has changed, and how attitudes have changed also. There's an episode where a woman reports a rape and Carol helps do the rape kit - there's a similar episode in The Pitt, but the focus is much more on the wellbeing of the patient, of making sure she's comfortable and can trust the people around her. It's great. Both are great. But the characters in ER feel like old friends!

Curbing your enthusiasm
Nighty Night
Pulling

All wonderful

Haven’t RTFT but people always say Sex and the City has aged badly and give the example of the episode where the main character (a heterosexual woman) doesn’t pursue a relationship with a bisexual man. Whereas I completely disagree. The vast majority of heterosexual women would prefer not to get into a relationship with a man who has sex with men.

I love This Life and the only bit that aged badly is the young, beautiful female lawyer being attracted to her ugly, middle-aged, balding boss. It wasn’t even painted as her trying to get ahead in her career, she’s supposed to have had the hots for him - yeah, right. 😂

I forgotten all about Just Good Friends!!! I hated Vince with a passion. He was so smarmy. I think that character is the reason I have never been able to find blond men attractive 😂
There was another similar character in a sitcom called Brushstrokes. He was a supposedly attractive jack the lad type decorator. He was also a colossal nob who gave teenage me the rage 😂

I rewatched TNG recently, expecting it to have aged badly (TOS certainly has!) but I was really impressed by how the scripts still stood up well.

The Royle Family, The Thick of It of and The Office
Genius writing and acting as relevant and relatable now as they were 20/25 years ago

Scorchio!!!!

So has Frasier.

I'm introducing my son to flight of the concords and it's hard to believe it's 20 years old

Bit left field but I think MASH has aged well given it's more than 50 years since it was first broadcast. It's still one of the best anti-war programmes ever made and has a unique blend of comedy and pathos. Aspects that would be less acceptable today are the way that the Koreans are often portrayed as yokels and Hawkeye's character, but then he is humanised so well over the series and his womanising is shown to be his way of blocking out the trauma.

Friends is much more recent but has aged less well. I want to watch it with my DD but am worried about all the fat jokes and the message they give. We tried watching Blackadder but she just didn't have the patience for verbal comedy, which makes me sad. But this generation is used to 2 min insta clips. Will try again when she's older.

Vicar of Dibley humour was dated even on first transmission.

A PP mentioned Minder and I thought it had aged badly when I saw a rerun (probably at least 10 years ago now!)

As PP I think Yes Prime Minister is brilliant. I joined the Civil Service about 10 years later and it was so true to life! I also think Dad’s Army is timeless - it was already historical when made and the writers knew what they were writing about as they’d been in the Home Guard. (It also makes me smile because it has family resonance - I have photos of family members in the Home Guard and stories they told tallied with some of the incidents in the show. Even the overbearing bank manager who was the local Capt. Mainwaring!)

I love the closing credits where each man’s character is shown in how he marches across the field. A little nugget and classic of its kind.

I’ve recently been watching a number of 1970s BBC programmes now available on iPlayer: Going for a Song, Face the Music and Call My Bluff. What is astonishing is how erudite guests were expected to be. They’ve either dated appallingly or are still eminently watchable today because of this very factor - depending on your viewpoint!

Are you serious? The kissing in it has made my foof clamp shut like an angry clam...

Perhaps it’s me but loved teachers, lovejoy, deadwood, Poirot and Miss Marple, Cadfael, Rumpole of the Bailey

I always think Blackadder has aged incredibly well.

I know it’s all set in the past but the tone, humour etc still works today and almost never feels jarring or dated.

I agree. The Carry ons made in the 70s were especially bad. Carry on Abroad and Carry on Matron are two of the worst.
But the early ones had a charm and some funny lines. Carry on Screaming is quite a funny take on the Hammer house of horror films while Carry on Teacher and Carry on Sargent have a gentle charm.

I read the Kenneth Williams Diaries recently and yes, he was a terrible snob at times, but he was consistently and utterly scathing about the scripts and production of the Carry Ons even at the time of filming.

Totally agree about Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, and I still love the David Suchet Poirots and Joan Hickson Marples. Babylon 5 was never as popular as Star Trek when it was on TV, but I feel like it's aged better.

Some have been ruined by the behaviour of the cast rather than the storylines - I loved Lewis but I can't look at Hathaway any more without remembering that the 'actor' playing him is a dreadful weaselly bag of shite, and I suspect part of the reason they don't re-show old series of 80s and 90s quiz shows rebadged as 'classic' is the dreadful sleazy behaviour, 'flirting', casual misogyny and clumsy innuendo from the presenters.

I think the X files has ages very well . I still think it's very good.
Frasier is still very witty
Some comedies were terrible even when they were first shown Mind your language was terrible even in the 70s.
I used to like Just Good friends because I loved Paul Nicolas as Vince but that hasn' aged well at all. Now he just seems irresponsible and sexist and Penny is very annoying!
A Fine Romance with Judi Dench and Michael Williams is still a joy to watch though.

Minder is having a rerun at the moment. It's not The Sweeney by any stretch of the imagination, but better than I remember thinking it was at the time.

Re The Sweeney - as Jools Holland and his band mates would say, they were cool (for cats)

The Royale Family is superb, but the preoccupation with weight has definitely aged badly! Poor Jessica Hynes' character of Cheryl 🙈 we rewatched recently and this, plus a few choice references to homosexuality would definitely not be included today.

It didn't put me off, you can see it's still genius.