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

Here's meta.

Martin (John Maloney. Born in Blackpool) as Seattle beat cop impersonation of Daphne (Jane Leeves), born Ilford doing attempted US version of her Manc accent

Ever Decreasing Circles seems to have stood up better than the Good Life in my opinion. It was all a bit beige for me as a teenager when it was first on, but I rewatched it recently and thought it was marvellous. The character of Martin played by Richard Briers is much more likeable (and realistic?).

I agree about Dinnerladies being almost timeless, except the concept of a fully staffed canteen serving freshly cooked food in a factory is long gone! The humour is well timed and, more importantly for me, it's never based on unkindness or belittling.

Gil Chesterton the restaurant critic was also fab. “Deb can’t make it, she’s on manoeuvres with her reserve unit”.

I guess I must have missed those episodes!

Just realised it's ITV4, not Talking Pictures.Doh.

Hell yes. Bulldog being camp as tits irl was a huge revelation. Give that man an Emmy.

@AntiqueBabyLoanSmurf I feel sorry for soap actors who play villains and dingbats abuse them in the street as though they actually are that fictional character. Still, it must be annoying even if you play a well-loved goodie, having people calling after you using the character's name and coming out with the same well-intentioned but tiresome banter.
This happened to Mark Savage, who played Gripper Stepson, Grange Hill's most feared bully. He had death threats.

Rowan Atkinson also grumbles about being associated with Mr Bean.

I love Minder for old London. They do things like drive up to the Albert Hall and park right outside. As if!

I still love The Good Life & think it's so well written and beautifully cast that it still stands up well today.
I'm currently watching Vladimir and The Affair and have been quite shocked by the f word count in both series. Do any of you & your families/friendship groups actually speak like that? In The Affair the parents and teen children use the f word when speaking to each other too.

I often think about how old tv shows couldn't be made today because mobile phones have ruined everything. For example, the recent show, Power about Huw Edwards I found really boring to watch ( despite it's subject matter ) as it was mainly based around text messaging, which is not v interesting to watch!

I suspect part of the reason that Frasier was so great is that most of the men in it, apart from Kelsey Grammer, were gay. Even Bulldog!

Differentforgirls · Yesterday 10:16
Might be the reason why people all over the world dislike British people.

Speak only for yourself, not 'people all over the world'.

What a stupid remark.

I do like Richard Curtis because I think his heart is in the right place, but...

he's an upper middle class, Oxbridge-educated man who (while obviously talented) has lots of connections in the media world. HIs partner is the tiresome Emma Freud, also a super-privileged upper middle class woman whose family are already famous and who has many media connections even before her career started.

These people breeze through life never having to consider money or how to get a job and live in a lovely, pretty world of a nice London house, holiday homes, famous/creative/fashionable media-folk friends etc etc etc.

I don't mind all this as long as such people don't imagine they live, or reflect in their work, the way the world is for most of the rest of us!

I have to agree about Granada. I can’t watch any other Sherlock Holmes. Or Poirot.

Agreed. They were the tops in the 80s. Brideshead Revisited was superb and then they topped that with The Jewel in the Crown.

And they made that brilliant, unsurpassable version of Sherlock Holmes too.

They set a new standard in TV production, which the BBC at the time couldn't emulate.

Granada made some of the best TV shown on ITV, The Jewel In The Crown was another Granada masterpiece that I never tire of watching.

If British people were to dislike people from another country, especially further east, then they would be 'judged' as 'racist' by the self appointed judges on MN! I can think of plenty of nations whose people I dislike!

Surely there are baddies (or at least multi-faceted not-especially-goodies) in most TV programmes and films, though? Somebody has to play them! David Tennant played Dennis Nilsen, yet in real-life, David hasn't even killed one person himself!

I feel sorry for soap actors who play villains and dingbats abuse them in the street as though they actually are that fictional character. Still, it must be annoying even if you play a well-loved goodie, having people calling after you using the character's name and coming out with the same well-intentioned but tiresome banter.

Only the British? I once read something about all countries having regions they mock, it was certainly the case when we were in Germany!

It's still very good, the comparisons with today's occupant of 1600 only show how appalling the orangeman is.

In many of the examples mentioned on this thread they're old programmes being judged by today's extremist values, if that kind of thinking were applied to all drama there would be little left.

Yes, I am really having a hard time understanding how some posters can watch anything!

Like the post complaining about Desperate Housewives and the mother obsessed with her daughter being fat. You are supposed to think it's appalling when she makes her run behind the car!

Do people not understand that not every person depicted in a tv show is meant to be a good person, or a good example? How can you have any story where there is no one like that?

Or is it that we aren't supposed to be able to laugh at the awful people?

X-posted!

I noticed it on only yesterday in the Sky Guide. I think it was on That's TV (or possibly That's TV 2).

It's being repeated on one of the more obscure satellite channels (That's TV) that half the time shows old 80s videos.

I'd never seen Nearest and Dearest when it was on. One of those oddball Granada things with people you'd never find on the BBC or the South (alright. Apart from steptoe). I find it strangely watchable. Again they're talking about being born in like 1916 and stuff in The War and you realise they mean ww1

Tbh this made Endeavour unwatchable for me. Of course he's younger and presumably less cynical, which is fine, but frankly he was a totally different person. And they retconned some significant elements of his story too, iirc.

Why bother making a new show about an old character if you don't want to do a show about that character?