to think tv is now generally crap

[southeastastra]

no original series no new sci fi that isn't rehashed stuff

i think we reached the pinnacle of it all in the 70s and just didn't bother building on it

TV (as is parenting) is an annoying inconvenience since I discovered MN

"wow! Washes your whites SO white! Etc"

hahaha, the pinnacle of it all was in the 70's, hahaha.

I almost stroked my own pussy

I haven't seen a lot of 70s TV, but I can't say that I was greatly impressed by the little I saw.

I agree that there is a lot of rubbish on TV though. I generally record interesting looking stuff on my PVR box and watch it later. Saves the bother of flicking through the channels and finding absolutely nothing that's going to hold my interest for more than 2 minutes.

The rehashed stuff isn't really an issue if you never saw the original version

There's some good and bad.
Music however is shite these days with one or two exceptions. I can't remember the last time I listened to radio 1 without muttering something about noise and turning it of.

TV reached it's pinnacle in the 70? Really?

There's always been a fair amount of rubbish on TV. It's entertainment for the masses; some stuff you'll like, some you won't.

Too much reality stuff for my tastes so I don't watch that, but I still find things I enjoy. Anything I do want to watch however, I tend to record in order to avoid having to sit through the increasingly annoying ad breaks.

That's certainly one thing that's changed since the 70's. During an hour long programme there used to be an ad break every 15 minutes, now there seems to be one about every 10 minutes and they seem to last forever.

I see your 70's (and even give you Battlestar Galactica as a "rehash") and raise you Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Mentalist, and Scream.

Yes TV is largely crap and Sky Movies isn't THAT good either for the amount one pays it is daylight robbery really.

DH reckons that the rehash of Battlestar Galactica is better than the original 70's version.

For every generation TV is going to seem to peek and decline. That's because it is driven by marketing needs and as you age you slowly age in to and then out of the "desirable" demographic and TV makers start making less and less programming that is aimed at you. Depending on your personal preferences you might like things more a bit earlier or later than most of your cohort, but eventually it's not going to be hitting your buttons.

Can't agree that it peeked in the 70s though. Watching 70s TV makes me cringe.

It's all Bollox. Watching TV seems to be a default for relaxation even in this house, where we're all book mad! Just turn the fing thing off

It's only any good as a babysitter, let's face it.... At six am the telly goes on and I retreat for a coffee... It does go off at 7 for the day but gawd I need the me talk space to commiserate myself on yet another shortened sleep

I don't see the attraction to Eastenders and the like. I'd have thought most people have enough problems Intel life without watching all that angst on TV

Intel?? Should have put my specs on! Real life.

My favourite time for TV was the 90's. Some game shows were good then, such as the Crystal Maze. Also the credits always lasted until the end, so you could record some good music. Now they're talked over straight away. You get a feeling that producers are always "playing with their toys" with graphics everywhere, all the time, and a shot can never be still for more than about two seconds.

Also, it seems ever more so nowadays that even with the ever-increasing "reality" TV, it looks to my cynical mind as if the producers have decided on the conclusion in advance (what's going to happen, who's going to win), possibly even before they start filming. For all we know the winner of Big Brother is chosen in advance. Maybe it's always been this way, but if so such deception was subtler in years past. I remember being very disappointed to learn that a lot of the Crystal Maze is less spontaneous than it looks!

Absolute bollix op. We're in a golden age of drama. Fuck knows what you are watching.

wanderings I hear you. I don't necessarily agree about 90's TV being the best, but wrt "reality TV" it's gotten so cynical and knowing now it's hard to ignore. TV watching can be so habit orientated it takes some breaking though..

YABU

There's more TV being made so therefore there's more shit TV. But overall I think many brilliant dramas have been made in the past few years. You know the quality of output has increased when TV is no longer considered a retirement home for past their best movie actors.

If you think the TV is crap in Britain you want to come to France where it is really dire.

Soaps, anything celeb, talent or reality is utter shite.
That's why box sets, Netflix etc was invented.
The killing
Sons of Anarchy
House of cards
True detective
Walking dead
The good wife....
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Best thing on atm is Hunted on C4, hpwever good telly has been a long time coming.

There's some great stuff at the mo, The Strain, The Leftovers etc.

Depends what you mean by "tv." If you switch the tv on at any given time yes, most of it will be shite. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would watch, say, Emmerdale. Or the One Show.
But the dramas you can get on box set, or Netflix, are outstanding.
You can't watch The Wire, True Detective and Mad Men and still claim tv these days is shite.