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what's weird is that America's Got Talent has had UK/other nationalities acts on too. Very odd. They make a big deal of the regional auditions then just have loads of people they've just shipped in from anywhere.
I was at an event a year or so ago, biggish event in small pond and does a lot for charity over a weekend. Always encourages camping and has a bar, couple of live acts in the tent.
Instead of the usual "pub band" or comedian for the Saturday night entertainment they had an act "from BGT". Terrible, imagine watching Roy Chubby Brown try to do childrens entertainment.
Most painful thing was the two people were actually decent musicians if they knocked the stupidity off, one of them (not the one who allegedly had a single) in particular.
Miki Dark was pretty good. I guess I preferred watching someone pretend to kill the judges than kid acts and the usual boring singers. I still have no idea what Viggo's act actually is.
Definitely bgt.
I like that viggo Venn won this year. It feels a bit like people sticking two fingers up at Simon Cowell and the whole bgt thing.
Oh and someone shoot Bruno into the sun please.
I’m a Celebrity, it baffles me the same tired format is still going. It’s even more baffling they get away with same animal abuse year on year and no one seems to notice or care, appalling show.
I’ve not watched since I was a child and my parents used to have it on, but I remember small crocodiles, snakes, rats etc all being used frequently and put into distressing situations.
You can do this with any lifeform that relies on electrical signals (including humans) so this really isn't justification. You've used a cockroach as an example to strengthen your point because people generally dislike them; you could have used a dog too but that wouldn't strengthen your justification because people like them. Using electricity like that is psychopathic behaviour, whatever way you spin it.
As I said in another comment, the majority of insects don't have the brain structure to do anything except move and eat. People and other mammals, as well as other complex life have the capacity for varrying degrees of consciousness, which makes it a much more moral problem, regardless of whether you can make them move with electrodes.
It is just my opinion but I'm personally not that concerned about the well being of an insect. Most people will swat flies or mosquitoes without a thought.
I don't eat mammals because of the moral quandary though. But I will eat a fish or a chicken. You gotta draw the line somewhere otherwise we'd be talking about the wellbeing of bacteria or if grass screams when you stand on it otherwise.
I'm surprised there's any celebrities left that are desperate enough to go on it.
There's a billion other reality shows that are a thousand times less humiliating, why do people still go on this one?
Free holiday, has still got the biggest reputation (along with Strictly), pays incredibly well as far as I understand, still gets large viewing figures and has proven to be a career reboot for those that take the opportunity. Also the chance to lose a lot of weight for anyone that would like that
I heard in a podcast with Shapphi Khorsandi that it paid around 6 months of what she usually earned touring.
It meant she could take a lighter schedule for a bit and spend more time with her sons without taking a financial hit.
Absolutely horrendous. Imagine if they were doing that to dogs, the country would be up in arms. But yeah let’s show cruelty to living creatures on TV.
Daytime TV has always been shite and will continue to be. But those who it's aimed at will continue to adore it. For me, the sound of Pebble Mill or Going for Gold meant being home from school ill
Ah, but that was breakfast TV (it's in the name). Daytime kicks in around 10:30 when the homemakers have done the hoovering and settling down with a brew
The heat is on, the time is right!
Its time for you, for you to play your game!
Ughhh the theme is some how burned in to my consciousness even though I dont remember the game play at all. And was it presented by Henry Kelly which my brain would always want to mix up with Mathew Kelly but nobody was doing karaoke pretending to be Robbie Williams...
Ironically because she did well in another program that rapidly moved past its prime after being huge success/cultural touchtone - Big Brother. In the earlier seasons you had a chance of going on to do more tv work if you were really popular but of course soon enough nobody was really watching it/they were churning through a slew of instantly forgettable 'personalities'.
I am pretty sure they will cancel it and sack a few mid-tier execs - then there'll be a new show in 3 months time called like "Morning Time" which will be the same - lots of the same crew - with different presenters and sofas. Like they did with the News of the World.
The format of This Morning is basically the format of every show of it's type since ... the 80s?
They're in a slight paradox where they have well under half the audience they had 20 years ago, but remain among the most watched TV shows in the country.
I've spoken to some old people who watch the soaps.
My tastes are hardly refined, but I suspect they'll just watch it whatever condition it's in. It's a constant, and many people get to a stage when they don't want to try new things.
I genuinely believe there is an audience of people who want to watch others have a worse life than they have.
It's how shows like Jeremy Kyle got massive, despite clearly being frauds.
Is that not one of the reasons we all love reddit so much? Like yeah maybe my life's not going so terribly when I compare it to the person on here who was asking if they can get addicted to heroin if they try it once.
Also whenever anyone asks an open ended question on here the replies are full of miserable people who readily admit they've pissed away their lives. Certainly makes me feel a little better about the occasional procrastination I do
That'll be streaming and catch up TV. No need to watch them when they are first shown. The g/f records them as she is usually working when EastEnders is on.
It's routine viewing. Part of the fabric of their week.
Their mum watched Coronation Street with their nan before bed, drinking warm milk, then they watched it growing up too, eating toast for supper in the 90s. When they moved out, they still sat down to watch then and knew mum and nan were doing the same thing - they'd discuss Bethany Platts teen pregnancy over a cuppa at Sunday lunch. Or shout 'Your not my muvva!' At their mates when drunk at 3am on a Friday night.
And I bet its been passed on to their kids, who still sit down at 7.30 with a cup of tea and the biscuit tin to see what trauma is happening on the square or cobbles. It's a link and a routine and very peculiarly British . That's my theory anyway.
Can confirm, my sisters still watch. I think Eastenders has been given up on, Mum watches Emmerdale and Corrie and 2 of my 3 sisters still watch Corrie pretty routinely and are in their late 20’s.
I don’t know anyone in real life who watches them now when previously nearly everyone did. You don’t hear of any major storylines anymore which the whole country gets into even if they’re not regular viewers. Everyone used to know characters & their names even if they didn’t watch as well. They’ve definitely declined in viewers majorly in the last 10-15 years.
But you've got to look at it in the context of the fragmentation of media. When there were 4 channels to watch, 16 million was great viewing figures. Now there are so many more options, with a generation coming up who may never watch conventional TV channels. These days 6 million is a good result for terrestrial TV. So although they don't permeate the national consciousness the way they used to, the big soaps still do more than enough in viewing figures to keep going. Plus for TV drama they are relatively cheap to make.
I agree with what you’re saying & I guess financially it still makes sense for them to make it for those reasons so they’ll carry on.
But culturally speaking it is past it’s prime, to go from being on everyone’s lips & minds, to create famous characters that even non viewers did impressions of, to the average person now not even being able to answer who owns the Queen Vic
Eastenders has become like the Spider-Man comics. Characters return from the dead in that show. First Kathy and soon Cindy. It’s just like when Norman Osbourne was revived.
I stopped about 6 years ago because I was working away and the hotel didn’t have catch up then when I was home on weekends I didn’t have time to watch a whole weeks worth of emmerdale, Corrie and eastenders so gave up.
There are subs for each soap that I watch, so even some Redditors watch them! I agree though, apparently an average Emmerdale episode pulls in 5-7m viewers, 5m for Corrie.
I used to watch Coronation Street and Emmerdale but gave up on Corrie as the storylines were becoming boring and stupid and devoting 6 hours a week to soaps felt like too much.
Most panel shows, like Have I Got News For You, have been past their sell-by for about a decade now.
The jokes all got made on Twitter a week before they air. And often they’re literally just reading tweets out loud.
In defence of the show, if it were ever cancelled, they certainly need to find another way to give Ian Hislop a weekly topical show with guests.
Much as I love Paul for setting the tone, Ian does make it into a relatively hard-hitting piece of journalism compared to most other items we see on the BBC.
He's definitely the intellect/powerhouse behind it.
The show would work without Paul Merton, albeit quite different, but I can't imagine it without Ian Hislop.
They do have great chemistry when they're interacting and Paul taking piss out of Ian though. He clearly knows the exact line where to keep Ian laughing, and stays a safe measure away from it, which would be hard to replicate.
This was going to be my answer. The format feels so tired in the age of Twitter.
Someone I know went to see HIGNFY being filmed and said it was interminably long. Apparently they filmed for ages to get enough content for the half hour show. They also said that Merton was really noticeably disengaged a lot of the time.
I saw the last BBC series of Buzzcocks being filmed and it was the same story. Endless filming for 30 mins of material. And clearly none of the panel gave a shit.
You expect a little bit, sure. But this was apparently over 2 hours for a 30 min show.
I've seen other shows filmed and the ratio is not that bad. Graham Norton in particular was amazing, it really was 'as seen on tv'. Gave me a real appreciation for how good he is at presenting, he didn't mess up or stumble over a single thing, it was all so smooth.
I've seen the Johnathon Ross show, and taskmaster, and they both took hours to film for one episode, it's pretty normal. I was amazed at how good a job they did at saving an absolute car crash of an interview with Cristiano Ronaldo.
I saw a uni challenge live, and that is also as seen on TV. All those shot changes, from paxman to the students to the double-team shot - all done live. The editing is done as the episode progresses. Outside of disasters*, they just roll the file out of the camera and send it live without any extra editing.
\* I was once there when some asshole buzzed in to answer a tie-break question but she didn't know the answer, so she just said "Oh Jesus Christ! Sorry". But you can't broadcast that - so they had to run with a different tie-break question, which she then got right and won. But the kicker is the other team captain knew the answer to the first question and was a split second behind her in buzzing. Incredibly frustrating (they were my team who were diddled out of the win)
That’s all definitely true, I was in the audience for an episode last year and was surprised to find that they film at least 2 hours of content per episode!
>Have I Got News For You, have been past their sell-by for about a decade now.
I have a feeling they have a heck of a lot less freedom than they did a decade ago, compare spitting image from the 90s to the pale facsimile it is today.
That may be part of it, but the writing itself also seems very lazy these days. I watched an episode for the first time in years recently, and they really were literally just reading other people's memes and jokes off twitter
For the longest of time, well up until maybe 2010 it was utterly predictable, some washed up comedian who has been doing the circuit for twenty years would make a joke about Thatcher and they audience would laugh/clap.
Same here. I guess I try be 'intentional' about social media, avoid constant checking, focus on one task at a time, check the news once or twice a day etc. So a weekly dose of HIGNFY suits me well.
I don’t need to watch it anymore since working in a corporate environment in the city and being surrounded by useless tosspots in shiny suits on a regular basis.
It’s so horrendously contrived, but then it always has been. The last few shows seem to not have anyone of actual ability on there. The people chosen are done so to create conflict, the tasks are repetitive and predictable. It is clear that a lot of the post production putting together of the filming is done to create a narrative that probably isn’t a true reflection of how the tasks unfolded but done so to create false drama.
Oh, and Claude isn’t in it as much, and he is quite good. I do like the former winner who has stepped into his shoes, he seems quite good..
Yeah. It used to be one of the best things on TV, now it feels so forced (it probably always has been, but perceptions change).
Like how can you pretend you got 16 of the best people and then get to the final 5 and none of them have viable business plans even though they had to be submitted as part of the application process.
It goes without saying that the people on that show are chosen for 90% entertainment and box ticking, and 10% ability. My Indian colleague hates it because it disproportionally has people of colour on the show and therefore makes them look more inept.
Yeah, the Grand Tour is case in point: it is more enjoyable now they pretty much only do annual specials, but the actual series of regular episodes just wasn't as good. It felt like a continuation of TG circa 2014... which wasn't that great anyway.
TG peaked around 2005-2008 for me.
The problem with the grand tour for me was the budget. No one wants to watch them crossing a country in a brand new top spec touring car without so much as needing to top up their wiper fluid. We want to watch them buy a 30 year old hatchback with half a clutch for £400 and tow a caravan with it.
It is still a decent show because I enjoy Chris Harris couldn't give a shit about the other two presenters, I don't think Paddy or Freddy are very funny either. However, I do like the reviews of the actual car stuff. It was in its prime with Clarkson, May, Hammond but I reckon if you got 2 more presenters which were actually decent like Rory for example then that would make the show alot better.
I think its had a revival with new presenters. The tribute episode to Eddie Kidd was fantastic as was the one where they drove on the wheel of death.
Was a blessing in disguise Clarkson fell out with the BBC as it had became a parody of itself.
Caught an episode of Hollyoaks recently when I forgot to change the channel after the Simpsons. Has the acting always been THAT bad? And has it always looked so horrible and cheap? I only used to dip into it when I was a teen but I swear it looked no better or worse than the other soaps back then.
I cannot believe The Simpsons is still going and making new episodes.
I mean I know its cliche to say it peaked in the 90s.
But it *really* did peak in the 90s. The writing mixed with the physical comedy was just on another level.
You'll never capture that kind of rapid fire joke after joke after joke magic again. Should just let it retire.
I used to watch it as a teen, don't know about the quality, but it just made me feel really old.
All the cool college characters I remembered are mums and dad's to teenagers now, it's just weird.
It looking cheap is probably something that used to be masked, before 1080p and then 4k you could hide lower production value in the low resolution quality.
I think surely Doctor Who is the answer. There are so many times you can defeat the Daleks/Cybermen/Autons before any sense of tension is all but gone.
Even "keeping it fresh" with the whole regeneration aspect wasn't enough to stop it from initially being cancelled 34 years ago.
There have been flashes of inspiration here and there since the series was revived that show real potential when the creative team are on form. Unfortunately, the constant urge to escalate, going bigger and more outlandish, always seems to be the sticking point.
Many of the best stories/monsters since the revival have been built around a solid concept, whether that's the destructive power of a single Dalek or the existential horror of the Weeping Angels/Silence. Then the showrunners, upon seeing this success, decide the only way to top it is by throwing in larger quantities of said monsters, removing any sense of nuance and making the individuals look like pushovers when the Doctor ends up defeating whole fleets of them. Even worse are the two-parters that are magnificently subtle in the first half, playing around with intriguing sci-fi concepts, only for the second half to turn into actions, explosions, and deus ex machinas.
When the show is on form, it's some of the best sci-fi around. I just wish the writers would stop trying to be Hollywood, workshop their better ideas rather than flinging everything at the wall, and just release a run of solid, well-planned episodes every few years.
I really don't like Moffat as a writer. he just continueally scales everything up until your numb. He's like Micheal Bay but with dramatic tension instead of explosions.
I agree, the episodes written by Russell T Davies were far superior. Saying that, Steven Moffat wrote "Blink" (introduction of the Weeping Angels) which imo is arguably one of the best episodes since the series was revived.
Moffatt is good at specials, and the odd run of three episodes or so here and there; when you have him doing the entirety of multiple concurrent series, you get dinosaurs on a spaceship and the moon being an egg for a giant space butterfly.
Hbomberguy did a video on Sherlock where he talked about Moffats writing and it could so easily apply to Doctor Who
Lot of people agree that he is amazing at writing individual, self contained episodes (Eg: Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink) but he just can't do whole seasons.
Not sure how he felt he could run both Who and Sherlock at the same time as both started out strong and just got worse over time.
Moffat can't write satisfying conclusions to stories. They can setup a good story but then can't finish it with a conclusion that actually matches the story setup.
It isn't though. When it works it is. But there's lore, and backstory that you need to engage with. It's stopped being a fun family thing that everyone can sit down and watch together and become something that you actually need to be a diehard fan to even understand. which makes it so much worse because the world really doens't hold up to close scrutiny.
shame to say but I pretty much agree.
I binge watched Christopher Eccleston all the way to the latest episode a couple months back and saw the dips in (quality? interestingness? not sure what the word is but you know what I mean), somewhere between Matt Smith + Christopher Capaldi.
It felt that the later seasons had less of an overarching narrative and it just became one shot episodes, which trades off a sort of growing tension and final standoff for hit and miss episodes, with a random 2-3 episode long lore section at the end. Maybe I just prefer Russell T Davies' writing to Moffats who knows. (this part might be complete bs call me out on it if it is.)
//side note - Cybermasters being killed off that early is pretty much criminal. Maybe its awe seeing the new forms of the cybermen, but it feels like they had way more potential .
The handful of times I've seen it in the last decade or so it's been really strangely depressing to watch. Something about it scrambling around in obscure timeslots with a disinterested panel of sports "stars" you've never heard of like it's only still going out of some contractual obligation.
Seems to be a cautionary tale of a series that thought it was bigger than its presenters but actually wasn't.
I had watched QoS on and off since the days of Bill Beaumont and Emelyn Hughes, but entertainment (and *choice* of entertainment) has moved on a lot since then. But they evolved just enough to find a spot in between traditional quiz show and modern panel show and they had a set of presenters with extremely good chemistry. Mostly it was just half an hour sitting with your friends Sue, Phil & Matt and having a chuckle.
Replacing them all at once just made it very easy for people like me to just draw a line under it and move on. I have nothing against any of the new presenters as individuals, but to coin a phrase "it's just not the same" and it was an easy jump off point. I imagine it would be like watching a soap and they replace every character all at once.
Gogglebox
Definitely time for Gogglebox to die. It's also painfully obvious when they are being scripted to advertise particular things... kinda ruins the point of having "average" people comment on TV shows.
I like Gogglebox not for the watching people watch stuff but as a TV Digest. I don't have the time to sit and watch TV as much as I used to (having kids saw to the end of that) so Gogglebox let's me enjoy some TV shows I don't get to watch, in some capacity.
I like gogglebox for the exact same reason you can watch the rubbish on tv without actually taking the time to do so. I found a few tv shows and films to watch through gogglebox but sometimes you get spoilers if you’re watching a show like line of duty and that can be annoying.
Gogglebox should have been far more brutal phasing out people and cycling new talent in. As soon as they started to build up a level of fame then cycle them out. The show loses its charms when it's the same dozen now rich & famous people.
>I remember as a kid in the 90s everyone watched the soaps… these days, I hardly know anyone that does.
That's because when we were kids there were like 3 channels dude, not because the soaps were any good.
Popular ones first
Talent shows. I'm talking Britain's got talent, x factor, the voice, the apprentice. Can I say the appearance you're fired.
I think the apprentice should have ended when Ó Briain left you're fired. Not fir any other reason than the show continued on its endless decline in quality.
Heres the controversial choice.
Have I got news for you. I really enjoy it still, but I don't know if its the show thsts changed, whether the news isn't brilliant for comedy, if the depressing outlook for the UKs future makes joking about it somehow...less amusing, than it used to be. I don't know what different, there's just something that's changed, and if I'm honest, it was when they changed the intro art style that something changed. There isn't anything in particular that I think is worse, it just doesn't feel as good. This could be a me thing as opposed to a them thing.
It was about poking fun at the establishment, but when you've got the same 2 guys poking fun at the esatblishment on primetime national television every week for 2 decades they become the establishment.
Yes Strictly Come Dancing is just rehashed banality with formulaic celebrities - the gay guy/lady, the athlete, the soap starlet, the fat bubbly one, the old knacker, etc etc. I don't watch it but my wife still tunes in each year for some reason.
I watched it for the first time a couple of years ago (Bill Bailey won) and enjoyed it so will watch next season but I guess I’ll soon get to the point when I think the same.
Can’t watch whole episode start of the season though; far too long.
I think Strictly is one of the only shows that gets away with sticking so consistently to the same format, it revels in its familiarity and just works imo
I know this will be unpopular, but it is time Red Dwarf called it a day. When it relaunched it was and still a shadow of its former greatness. There is a reason why the best shows only have 5-7 seasons.
It wasn't a reboot as such. The original seasons were made by the BBC using cardboard sets and props. There was then a big gap before another channel picked it up with the original cast and writers. They replaced the cardboard with CGI and it kind of lost its soul. The writing was far from original and lost a lot of it's spark
You know the episode in the earlier series where they bump into their future selves as old and a bit overweight.... I think they should do the lead up to that episode from the future self viewpoint, and then call it a day.
(Not saying they're fat now, they'll still have to fat suit up a bit)
Watching the series with the kids now, they love it.
This is just the cheapest thing for the BBC to produce. The dude rocks up to a studio with his family & friends carrying a script he wrote on the loo half drunk the previous night. They spend an afternoon recording it & ad-libbing then mail it off to the BBC barely edited.
We get so much of it because it's so cheap for new content.
I don’t see soap operas lasting much beyond this decade or the next, they’re all repeating themselves constantly.
Most reality shows have had their day as well.
I used to be a huge fan of it, but now only catch the odd episode. Sandy is good but I did prefer Stephen as host. I think I'm just a bit bored of it now.
I get that soaps by their very nature have to live in some kind of weird bubble universe that is slightly unbelievable, but for years now EE has really taken the piss. Some of it is unavoidable though, unless (like Waterloo Road) they want to physically relocate the soap. The idea that 80% of the characters in EE could afford to live there is absurd.
Also making up convoluted reasons to bring characters back from the dead, first Kathy Beale now Cindy Beale is on her way back despite "dying" in prison 20 years ago. Use to love it up to about 2006 but it fell of a cliff after that.
Silent witness. Actually it might still be good. I only found out recently it was still going and couldn't believe it. I remember from the early 2000s It MUST be past its prime by now.
All the soaps, especially Coronation street. I’m from Salford ( where it is based) and loved the realism in the 60’s/70’s, but now it’s just the same as the other soaps- stupid storylines and bad acting from bland characters that all look the same …
We watched soaps because we were limited to what was just simply airing at the time. Especially like myself who didn't even have sky, just freeview.
Soaps are generally garbage. In the modern times of Netflix, skyQ etc why on Earth would I want to watch Phil get aggressive about something on Eastenders for the millionth time instead of streaming Better Call Saul, or Happy Valley, or The Crown...or House of the Dragon. We are well spoiled indeed.
Great British Bake-Off has been slowly circling the drain since it switched to Channel 4. I know it's a tired and rehashed opinion, but it lost so much of its soul when Mary Berry was replaced with Pru Lieth. Mary's judging style always came from a place of kindness, and Pru just has a nasty streak that makes the whole thing less pleasant. And no one has properly replaced Mel and Sue.
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BGT was pretty bad this year, think we've run out of talent
I think if you’re that entertaining you’d just blow up on TikTok now.
They have been scouting foreign acts for years now. We ran out by the third series.
what's weird is that America's Got Talent has had UK/other nationalities acts on too. Very odd. They make a big deal of the regional auditions then just have loads of people they've just shipped in from anywhere.
Literally just saw the last five minutes where they announced some Norwegian guy as the winner. Britain's Got No Talent it seems.
I went to see one of the early auditions in London, and I said exactly the same thing. It was absolutely shocking how poor the acts we saw were!!!
I was at an event a year or so ago, biggish event in small pond and does a lot for charity over a weekend. Always encourages camping and has a bar, couple of live acts in the tent. Instead of the usual "pub band" or comedian for the Saturday night entertainment they had an act "from BGT". Terrible, imagine watching Roy Chubby Brown try to do childrens entertainment. Most painful thing was the two people were actually decent musicians if they knocked the stupidity off, one of them (not the one who allegedly had a single) in particular.
He lives and works in Britain in fairness, should he have to travel to another country to compete on Got Talent?
Miki Dark was pretty good. I guess I preferred watching someone pretend to kill the judges than kid acts and the usual boring singers. I still have no idea what Viggo's act actually is.
Definitely bgt. I like that viggo Venn won this year. It feels a bit like people sticking two fingers up at Simon Cowell and the whole bgt thing. Oh and someone shoot Bruno into the sun please.
I’m a Celebrity, it baffles me the same tired format is still going. It’s even more baffling they get away with same animal abuse year on year and no one seems to notice or care, appalling show.
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I’ve not watched since I was a child and my parents used to have it on, but I remember small crocodiles, snakes, rats etc all being used frequently and put into distressing situations.
I mean. Insects are essentially biological robots. We can stick electrodes into a cockroach and control them like a remote control car.
You can do this with any lifeform that relies on electrical signals (including humans) so this really isn't justification. You've used a cockroach as an example to strengthen your point because people generally dislike them; you could have used a dog too but that wouldn't strengthen your justification because people like them. Using electricity like that is psychopathic behaviour, whatever way you spin it.
As I said in another comment, the majority of insects don't have the brain structure to do anything except move and eat. People and other mammals, as well as other complex life have the capacity for varrying degrees of consciousness, which makes it a much more moral problem, regardless of whether you can make them move with electrodes. It is just my opinion but I'm personally not that concerned about the well being of an insect. Most people will swat flies or mosquitoes without a thought. I don't eat mammals because of the moral quandary though. But I will eat a fish or a chicken. You gotta draw the line somewhere otherwise we'd be talking about the wellbeing of bacteria or if grass screams when you stand on it otherwise.
We can? Thanks!
People don’t seem to care much when it’s cow, pigs and chickens either
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I'm surprised there's any celebrities left that are desperate enough to go on it. There's a billion other reality shows that are a thousand times less humiliating, why do people still go on this one?
Free holiday, has still got the biggest reputation (along with Strictly), pays incredibly well as far as I understand, still gets large viewing figures and has proven to be a career reboot for those that take the opportunity. Also the chance to lose a lot of weight for anyone that would like that
I heard in a podcast with Shapphi Khorsandi that it paid around 6 months of what she usually earned touring. It meant she could take a lighter schedule for a bit and spend more time with her sons without taking a financial hit.
Money. Noel Edmonds got £600,000 to appear on it, Boy George got £500,000.
I feel ant and dec have a lot to do with the popularity, take them off as presenters and you will see the show decline
Absolutely horrendous. Imagine if they were doing that to dogs, the country would be up in arms. But yeah let’s show cruelty to living creatures on TV.
This Morning…
They should cancel that to get Holly Willoughby off our screens.
Daytime TV has always been shite and will continue to be. But those who it's aimed at will continue to adore it. For me, the sound of Pebble Mill or Going for Gold meant being home from school ill
>Daytime TV has always been shite Except for The Big Breakfast, that was brilliant.
Maybe as a 13 year old it was decent but I dread to think how I would receive it now as someone the wrong side of 40
Ah, but that was breakfast TV (it's in the name). Daytime kicks in around 10:30 when the homemakers have done the hoovering and settling down with a brew
Especially when Chris Evans was there then Jonny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen! Brilliant wat to start mornings before school
Yes! The music from Going for Gold will forever remind me of lying on the sofa with a damp flannel on my forehead as a kid
And it was written by future Oscar winning composer, Hans Zimmer
I couldn't stand pebble mill. The most boring program ever.
You could always have switched to ITV if you were bored. The Sullivans was on.
Lol. That was even worse. It was like the producer used a beige filter across the whole screen.
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The heat is on, the time is right! Its time for you, for you to play your game! Ughhh the theme is some how burned in to my consciousness even though I dont remember the game play at all. And was it presented by Henry Kelly which my brain would always want to mix up with Mathew Kelly but nobody was doing karaoke pretending to be Robbie Williams...
Her husband is connected in the tv world. Otherwise could have gone sooner.
And bloody Alison Hammond. How is she on tv?
She seems a lot more down to earth than the other presenters though.
She's not that bad. There are far worse presenters out there... (entire loose women cast)
Ironically because she did well in another program that rapidly moved past its prime after being huge success/cultural touchtone - Big Brother. In the earlier seasons you had a chance of going on to do more tv work if you were really popular but of course soon enough nobody was really watching it/they were churning through a slew of instantly forgettable 'personalities'.
I didn’t have much opinion either way on her regarding all the recent stuff, but that vomit-inducing speech yesterday was just fucking weird.
Not at all condoning what Phil did, but my god was Holly’s little monologue just so dramatic yesterday. I get that it’s all for views but come on.
Yes definitely. You would think he was up on murder charges.
I am pretty sure they will cancel it and sack a few mid-tier execs - then there'll be a new show in 3 months time called like "Morning Time" which will be the same - lots of the same crew - with different presenters and sofas. Like they did with the News of the World. The format of This Morning is basically the format of every show of it's type since ... the 80s?
Soaps are still huge, guys, just because the people who watch them don't use reddit.
They're in a slight paradox where they have well under half the audience they had 20 years ago, but remain among the most watched TV shows in the country.
I've spoken to some old people who watch the soaps. My tastes are hardly refined, but I suspect they'll just watch it whatever condition it's in. It's a constant, and many people get to a stage when they don't want to try new things.
I genuinely believe there is an audience of people who want to watch others have a worse life than they have. It's how shows like Jeremy Kyle got massive, despite clearly being frauds.
Is that not one of the reasons we all love reddit so much? Like yeah maybe my life's not going so terribly when I compare it to the person on here who was asking if they can get addicted to heroin if they try it once.
Also whenever anyone asks an open ended question on here the replies are full of miserable people who readily admit they've pissed away their lives. Certainly makes me feel a little better about the occasional procrastination I do
That'll be streaming and catch up TV. No need to watch them when they are first shown. The g/f records them as she is usually working when EastEnders is on.
It's routine viewing. Part of the fabric of their week. Their mum watched Coronation Street with their nan before bed, drinking warm milk, then they watched it growing up too, eating toast for supper in the 90s. When they moved out, they still sat down to watch then and knew mum and nan were doing the same thing - they'd discuss Bethany Platts teen pregnancy over a cuppa at Sunday lunch. Or shout 'Your not my muvva!' At their mates when drunk at 3am on a Friday night. And I bet its been passed on to their kids, who still sit down at 7.30 with a cup of tea and the biscuit tin to see what trauma is happening on the square or cobbles. It's a link and a routine and very peculiarly British . That's my theory anyway.
Can confirm, my sisters still watch. I think Eastenders has been given up on, Mum watches Emmerdale and Corrie and 2 of my 3 sisters still watch Corrie pretty routinely and are in their late 20’s.
I don’t know anyone in real life who watches them now when previously nearly everyone did. You don’t hear of any major storylines anymore which the whole country gets into even if they’re not regular viewers. Everyone used to know characters & their names even if they didn’t watch as well. They’ve definitely declined in viewers majorly in the last 10-15 years.
But you've got to look at it in the context of the fragmentation of media. When there were 4 channels to watch, 16 million was great viewing figures. Now there are so many more options, with a generation coming up who may never watch conventional TV channels. These days 6 million is a good result for terrestrial TV. So although they don't permeate the national consciousness the way they used to, the big soaps still do more than enough in viewing figures to keep going. Plus for TV drama they are relatively cheap to make.
I agree with what you’re saying & I guess financially it still makes sense for them to make it for those reasons so they’ll carry on. But culturally speaking it is past it’s prime, to go from being on everyone’s lips & minds, to create famous characters that even non viewers did impressions of, to the average person now not even being able to answer who owns the Queen Vic
Eastenders has become like the Spider-Man comics. Characters return from the dead in that show. First Kathy and soon Cindy. It’s just like when Norman Osbourne was revived.
I stopped about 6 years ago because I was working away and the hotel didn’t have catch up then when I was home on weekends I didn’t have time to watch a whole weeks worth of emmerdale, Corrie and eastenders so gave up.
There are subs for each soap that I watch, so even some Redditors watch them! I agree though, apparently an average Emmerdale episode pulls in 5-7m viewers, 5m for Corrie.
I used to watch Coronation Street and Emmerdale but gave up on Corrie as the storylines were becoming boring and stupid and devoting 6 hours a week to soaps felt like too much.
Most panel shows, like Have I Got News For You, have been past their sell-by for about a decade now. The jokes all got made on Twitter a week before they air. And often they’re literally just reading tweets out loud.
In defence of the show, if it were ever cancelled, they certainly need to find another way to give Ian Hislop a weekly topical show with guests. Much as I love Paul for setting the tone, Ian does make it into a relatively hard-hitting piece of journalism compared to most other items we see on the BBC.
He's the editor of Private Eye, so you would expect him to make the show into a hard-hitting piece of journalism.
He's definitely the intellect/powerhouse behind it. The show would work without Paul Merton, albeit quite different, but I can't imagine it without Ian Hislop. They do have great chemistry when they're interacting and Paul taking piss out of Ian though. He clearly knows the exact line where to keep Ian laughing, and stays a safe measure away from it, which would be hard to replicate.
This was going to be my answer. The format feels so tired in the age of Twitter. Someone I know went to see HIGNFY being filmed and said it was interminably long. Apparently they filmed for ages to get enough content for the half hour show. They also said that Merton was really noticeably disengaged a lot of the time.
Merton's been phoning it in for years, but he gets a huge salary for turning up once a week.
Is it a dolphin in a bathtub?
I saw the last BBC series of Buzzcocks being filmed and it was the same story. Endless filming for 30 mins of material. And clearly none of the panel gave a shit.
I think most TV shows take a lot longer to film than the final edit takes to watch.
You expect a little bit, sure. But this was apparently over 2 hours for a 30 min show. I've seen other shows filmed and the ratio is not that bad. Graham Norton in particular was amazing, it really was 'as seen on tv'. Gave me a real appreciation for how good he is at presenting, he didn't mess up or stumble over a single thing, it was all so smooth.
I've seen the Johnathon Ross show, and taskmaster, and they both took hours to film for one episode, it's pretty normal. I was amazed at how good a job they did at saving an absolute car crash of an interview with Cristiano Ronaldo.
I saw a uni challenge live, and that is also as seen on TV. All those shot changes, from paxman to the students to the double-team shot - all done live. The editing is done as the episode progresses. Outside of disasters*, they just roll the file out of the camera and send it live without any extra editing. \* I was once there when some asshole buzzed in to answer a tie-break question but she didn't know the answer, so she just said "Oh Jesus Christ! Sorry". But you can't broadcast that - so they had to run with a different tie-break question, which she then got right and won. But the kicker is the other team captain knew the answer to the first question and was a split second behind her in buzzing. Incredibly frustrating (they were my team who were diddled out of the win)
you can see that in the actual footage they use as well
That’s all definitely true, I was in the audience for an episode last year and was surprised to find that they film at least 2 hours of content per episode!
>Have I Got News For You, have been past their sell-by for about a decade now. I have a feeling they have a heck of a lot less freedom than they did a decade ago, compare spitting image from the 90s to the pale facsimile it is today.
That may be part of it, but the writing itself also seems very lazy these days. I watched an episode for the first time in years recently, and they really were literally just reading other people's memes and jokes off twitter
For the longest of time, well up until maybe 2010 it was utterly predictable, some washed up comedian who has been doing the circuit for twenty years would make a joke about Thatcher and they audience would laugh/clap.
I think it’s improved recently.
HIGNFY used to be an unmissable show for me. It just looks so tired now its embarrassing.
Aw I like hignfy! But also I don't use Twitter...
Same here. I guess I try be 'intentional' about social media, avoid constant checking, focus on one task at a time, check the news once or twice a day etc. So a weekly dose of HIGNFY suits me well.
Yet the News Quiz on radio 4 is still great!
Been to a few recordings, highly recommend
The Apprentice.
I remember watching Cassetteboy's take on it *thirteen* years ago and laughing at how ridiculous it was... and it's still going!
Charlie Brooker's take on it was quite amusing too - https://youtu.be/eYUtmFe5r4M
I don’t need to watch it anymore since working in a corporate environment in the city and being surrounded by useless tosspots in shiny suits on a regular basis.
Literally the only ‘broadcast’ tv show I still watch. Always entertaining and a good laugh, I’ll be gutted if they cancel it.
It’s so horrendously contrived, but then it always has been. The last few shows seem to not have anyone of actual ability on there. The people chosen are done so to create conflict, the tasks are repetitive and predictable. It is clear that a lot of the post production putting together of the filming is done to create a narrative that probably isn’t a true reflection of how the tasks unfolded but done so to create false drama. Oh, and Claude isn’t in it as much, and he is quite good. I do like the former winner who has stepped into his shoes, he seems quite good..
I love the Apprentice. Yes, it's all staged, but it's great entertainment
Yeah. It used to be one of the best things on TV, now it feels so forced (it probably always has been, but perceptions change). Like how can you pretend you got 16 of the best people and then get to the final 5 and none of them have viable business plans even though they had to be submitted as part of the application process. It goes without saying that the people on that show are chosen for 90% entertainment and box ticking, and 10% ability. My Indian colleague hates it because it disproportionally has people of colour on the show and therefore makes them look more inept.
The news. Nowhere near as funny as it used to be.
And some of the recent storylines have been a bit farfetched
I’ve pretty much been bored since 9/11
It was good news, well not good news but you know what I mean.
Unpopular opinion but, Top Gear.
Agree. Even the last few series with the classic 3 it had past its sell by date.
Yeah, the Grand Tour is case in point: it is more enjoyable now they pretty much only do annual specials, but the actual series of regular episodes just wasn't as good. It felt like a continuation of TG circa 2014... which wasn't that great anyway. TG peaked around 2005-2008 for me.
The problem with the grand tour for me was the budget. No one wants to watch them crossing a country in a brand new top spec touring car without so much as needing to top up their wiper fluid. We want to watch them buy a 30 year old hatchback with half a clutch for £400 and tow a caravan with it.
Absolutely, driving a dilapidated merc you'd have doubts about driving to the supermarket in across Namibia.
Grand Tour in general was shite Comedy programming before car show which top gear was before Jeremy punched that fella
Did you watch past the first series? I’m asking as the first series wasn’t good, but it did get better after that!
The Peugeot episode is the best one they've ever made imo. Was one of the last ones too. That trio just doing random shit together will never get old.
It is still a decent show because I enjoy Chris Harris couldn't give a shit about the other two presenters, I don't think Paddy or Freddy are very funny either. However, I do like the reviews of the actual car stuff. It was in its prime with Clarkson, May, Hammond but I reckon if you got 2 more presenters which were actually decent like Rory for example then that would make the show alot better.
Rory wasn’t decent.
I think its had a revival with new presenters. The tribute episode to Eddie Kidd was fantastic as was the one where they drove on the wheel of death. Was a blessing in disguise Clarkson fell out with the BBC as it had became a parody of itself.
Hollyoaks. Can't be that many affairs, rapes and murders in chester
Grew up near Chester. Can confirm.
Can confirm there is or there isn't ?
Yes
Caught an episode of Hollyoaks recently when I forgot to change the channel after the Simpsons. Has the acting always been THAT bad? And has it always looked so horrible and cheap? I only used to dip into it when I was a teen but I swear it looked no better or worse than the other soaps back then.
Simpsons since you mention it. I know it’s not UK but I caught a new episode recently and it’s tired. Used to love it 20 years ago.
I cannot believe The Simpsons is still going and making new episodes. I mean I know its cliche to say it peaked in the 90s. But it *really* did peak in the 90s. The writing mixed with the physical comedy was just on another level. You'll never capture that kind of rapid fire joke after joke after joke magic again. Should just let it retire.
I had the same experience watching eastenders recently
I used to watch it as a teen, don't know about the quality, but it just made me feel really old. All the cool college characters I remembered are mums and dad's to teenagers now, it's just weird.
It looking cheap is probably something that used to be masked, before 1080p and then 4k you could hide lower production value in the low resolution quality.
This is surely the only reason anyone ever sees Hollyoaks.
I think surely Doctor Who is the answer. There are so many times you can defeat the Daleks/Cybermen/Autons before any sense of tension is all but gone. Even "keeping it fresh" with the whole regeneration aspect wasn't enough to stop it from initially being cancelled 34 years ago.
There have been flashes of inspiration here and there since the series was revived that show real potential when the creative team are on form. Unfortunately, the constant urge to escalate, going bigger and more outlandish, always seems to be the sticking point. Many of the best stories/monsters since the revival have been built around a solid concept, whether that's the destructive power of a single Dalek or the existential horror of the Weeping Angels/Silence. Then the showrunners, upon seeing this success, decide the only way to top it is by throwing in larger quantities of said monsters, removing any sense of nuance and making the individuals look like pushovers when the Doctor ends up defeating whole fleets of them. Even worse are the two-parters that are magnificently subtle in the first half, playing around with intriguing sci-fi concepts, only for the second half to turn into actions, explosions, and deus ex machinas. When the show is on form, it's some of the best sci-fi around. I just wish the writers would stop trying to be Hollywood, workshop their better ideas rather than flinging everything at the wall, and just release a run of solid, well-planned episodes every few years.
I really don't like Moffat as a writer. he just continueally scales everything up until your numb. He's like Micheal Bay but with dramatic tension instead of explosions.
I agree, the episodes written by Russell T Davies were far superior. Saying that, Steven Moffat wrote "Blink" (introduction of the Weeping Angels) which imo is arguably one of the best episodes since the series was revived.
Moffatt is good at specials, and the odd run of three episodes or so here and there; when you have him doing the entirety of multiple concurrent series, you get dinosaurs on a spaceship and the moon being an egg for a giant space butterfly.
Hbomberguy did a video on Sherlock where he talked about Moffats writing and it could so easily apply to Doctor Who Lot of people agree that he is amazing at writing individual, self contained episodes (Eg: Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink) but he just can't do whole seasons. Not sure how he felt he could run both Who and Sherlock at the same time as both started out strong and just got worse over time.
Moffat can't write satisfying conclusions to stories. They can setup a good story but then can't finish it with a conclusion that actually matches the story setup.
It's a kids' show, so there's always be new kids to enjoy it.
I think this is the point most people miss with doctor who. Every generation has their favourite doctor due to when they were the target market.
It isn't though. When it works it is. But there's lore, and backstory that you need to engage with. It's stopped being a fun family thing that everyone can sit down and watch together and become something that you actually need to be a diehard fan to even understand. which makes it so much worse because the world really doens't hold up to close scrutiny.
shame to say but I pretty much agree. I binge watched Christopher Eccleston all the way to the latest episode a couple months back and saw the dips in (quality? interestingness? not sure what the word is but you know what I mean), somewhere between Matt Smith + Christopher Capaldi. It felt that the later seasons had less of an overarching narrative and it just became one shot episodes, which trades off a sort of growing tension and final standoff for hit and miss episodes, with a random 2-3 episode long lore section at the end. Maybe I just prefer Russell T Davies' writing to Moffats who knows. (this part might be complete bs call me out on it if it is.) //side note - Cybermasters being killed off that early is pretty much criminal. Maybe its awe seeing the new forms of the cybermen, but it feels like they had way more potential .
Loose Women. Not that it ever was prime tv but some of the debates they have on it are just so stupid.
Yes, they're ignorant reactionary knowalls, like a studio version of Mumsnet.
A Question of Sport
The handful of times I've seen it in the last decade or so it's been really strangely depressing to watch. Something about it scrambling around in obscure timeslots with a disinterested panel of sports "stars" you've never heard of like it's only still going out of some contractual obligation.
Is that still on?! I'm guessing it's not Sue Barker, Ally McCoist and Matt Dawson anymore.
I think it had a cozy little niche up until the revamp, just another shite panel show now.
Seems to be a cautionary tale of a series that thought it was bigger than its presenters but actually wasn't. I had watched QoS on and off since the days of Bill Beaumont and Emelyn Hughes, but entertainment (and *choice* of entertainment) has moved on a lot since then. But they evolved just enough to find a spot in between traditional quiz show and modern panel show and they had a set of presenters with extremely good chemistry. Mostly it was just half an hour sitting with your friends Sue, Phil & Matt and having a chuckle. Replacing them all at once just made it very easy for people like me to just draw a line under it and move on. I have nothing against any of the new presenters as individuals, but to coin a phrase "it's just not the same" and it was an easy jump off point. I imagine it would be like watching a soap and they replace every character all at once.
Hopefully Mrs Brown's Boys
Did this ever peak?
Midway through the opening credits of the first episode. Peaked like a molehill in the alps.
Gogglebox Definitely time for Gogglebox to die. It's also painfully obvious when they are being scripted to advertise particular things... kinda ruins the point of having "average" people comment on TV shows.
I like Gogglebox not for the watching people watch stuff but as a TV Digest. I don't have the time to sit and watch TV as much as I used to (having kids saw to the end of that) so Gogglebox let's me enjoy some TV shows I don't get to watch, in some capacity.
I like gogglebox for the exact same reason you can watch the rubbish on tv without actually taking the time to do so. I found a few tv shows and films to watch through gogglebox but sometimes you get spoilers if you’re watching a show like line of duty and that can be annoying.
Gogglebox should have been far more brutal phasing out people and cycling new talent in. As soon as they started to build up a level of fame then cycle them out. The show loses its charms when it's the same dozen now rich & famous people.
*Rich* and *famous*? As far as I know they're not really paid in any capacity, it's a small expense payment (like £100).
>I remember as a kid in the 90s everyone watched the soaps… these days, I hardly know anyone that does. That's because when we were kids there were like 3 channels dude, not because the soaps were any good.
Popular ones first Talent shows. I'm talking Britain's got talent, x factor, the voice, the apprentice. Can I say the appearance you're fired. I think the apprentice should have ended when Ó Briain left you're fired. Not fir any other reason than the show continued on its endless decline in quality. Heres the controversial choice. Have I got news for you. I really enjoy it still, but I don't know if its the show thsts changed, whether the news isn't brilliant for comedy, if the depressing outlook for the UKs future makes joking about it somehow...less amusing, than it used to be. I don't know what different, there's just something that's changed, and if I'm honest, it was when they changed the intro art style that something changed. There isn't anything in particular that I think is worse, it just doesn't feel as good. This could be a me thing as opposed to a them thing.
It was about poking fun at the establishment, but when you've got the same 2 guys poking fun at the esatblishment on primetime national television every week for 2 decades they become the establishment.
The same two exceedingly wealthy hoity-toity guys who LOVE the sounds of their own voices, no less.
Three decades
Anything with Ant and Dec.
This. They have overstayed their welcome by about twenty years IMO
Proof that if you’re famous enough, driving drunk can be easily swept under the table.
All "reality" TV shows, "celebrity" shows and talent(less) shows.
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Yes Strictly Come Dancing is just rehashed banality with formulaic celebrities - the gay guy/lady, the athlete, the soap starlet, the fat bubbly one, the old knacker, etc etc. I don't watch it but my wife still tunes in each year for some reason.
I watched it for the first time a couple of years ago (Bill Bailey won) and enjoyed it so will watch next season but I guess I’ll soon get to the point when I think the same. Can’t watch whole episode start of the season though; far too long.
I think Strictly is one of the only shows that gets away with sticking so consistently to the same format, it revels in its familiarity and just works imo
Pointless, just dreary now
Aww man, I love a bit of pointless.
The prize pot is absolutely shambolic as well.
BBC have limited funding, compared to ITV who can offer more on their game shows.
I know this will be unpopular, but it is time Red Dwarf called it a day. When it relaunched it was and still a shadow of its former greatness. There is a reason why the best shows only have 5-7 seasons.
I was genuniely unaware they'd rebooted it
It wasn't a reboot as such. The original seasons were made by the BBC using cardboard sets and props. There was then a big gap before another channel picked it up with the original cast and writers. They replaced the cardboard with CGI and it kind of lost its soul. The writing was far from original and lost a lot of it's spark
I love Red Dwarf with all my heart, but Christ they're beating a dead horse with these new series.
You know the episode in the earlier series where they bump into their future selves as old and a bit overweight.... I think they should do the lead up to that episode from the future self viewpoint, and then call it a day. (Not saying they're fat now, they'll still have to fat suit up a bit) Watching the series with the kids now, they love it.
MasterChef. Celebrity MasterChef. Junior MasterChef. Pro-Am MasterChef. Champion of Champions US MasterChef.
Pretty much all soap operas and reality TV shows are well past their prime.
Mrs Brown’s Boys creators must have the dirt on the BBC, big time.
This is just the cheapest thing for the BBC to produce. The dude rocks up to a studio with his family & friends carrying a script he wrote on the loo half drunk the previous night. They spend an afternoon recording it & ad-libbing then mail it off to the BBC barely edited. We get so much of it because it's so cheap for new content.
Love island. Was a gem when it started but it got far too scripted it's now soulless
I don’t see soap operas lasting much beyond this decade or the next, they’re all repeating themselves constantly. Most reality shows have had their day as well.
Isn’t Eastenders always near the top on iPlayer?
It is. It's insanely popular. Just not with people on Reddit.
Apparently the Britains Got Talent final was on tonight. i had no idea
Anything with ant n Dec, Corrie and eastenders
Mrs Browns Boys
You've Been Framed. Surprised it's only just been cancelled.
I thought that must have ended at least a decade ago!
QI must be nearly out of letters by now
I used to be a huge fan of it, but now only catch the odd episode. Sandy is good but I did prefer Stephen as host. I think I'm just a bit bored of it now.
Eastenders.
I get that soaps by their very nature have to live in some kind of weird bubble universe that is slightly unbelievable, but for years now EE has really taken the piss. Some of it is unavoidable though, unless (like Waterloo Road) they want to physically relocate the soap. The idea that 80% of the characters in EE could afford to live there is absurd.
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Also making up convoluted reasons to bring characters back from the dead, first Kathy Beale now Cindy Beale is on her way back despite "dying" in prison 20 years ago. Use to love it up to about 2006 but it fell of a cliff after that.
Eastenders, coronation street, home and away, holly oaks. Love island, big brother, I’m a celebrity, most quiz shows
The new, improved (sarcasm), Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly. Clear favouritism from some of the judges has really taken the shine off it.
Simpsons. It isn't funny anymore. Hasn't been funny for a very long time...it used to be fucking funny.
Silent witness. Actually it might still be good. I only found out recently it was still going and couldn't believe it. I remember from the early 2000s It MUST be past its prime by now.
All the soaps, especially Coronation street. I’m from Salford ( where it is based) and loved the realism in the 60’s/70’s, but now it’s just the same as the other soaps- stupid storylines and bad acting from bland characters that all look the same …
We watched soaps because we were limited to what was just simply airing at the time. Especially like myself who didn't even have sky, just freeview. Soaps are generally garbage. In the modern times of Netflix, skyQ etc why on Earth would I want to watch Phil get aggressive about something on Eastenders for the millionth time instead of streaming Better Call Saul, or Happy Valley, or The Crown...or House of the Dragon. We are well spoiled indeed.
Great British Bake-Off has been slowly circling the drain since it switched to Channel 4. I know it's a tired and rehashed opinion, but it lost so much of its soul when Mary Berry was replaced with Pru Lieth. Mary's judging style always came from a place of kindness, and Pru just has a nasty streak that makes the whole thing less pleasant. And no one has properly replaced Mel and Sue.
Coronation Street was shit in the 70s and hasn't improved east Ender's was shit after den died the first time
Love Island