The editor of a well-known magazine told me how a TV show interviewed him on a subject he’s an expert on. He was proud of his work: he had been witty, succinct and presumed he’d command a hefty section of the programme. He told colleagues and family to tune in. So imagine his horror to discover he didn’t feature at all. Instead, all of his opinions had been fed to ‘celebs’– you know, reality TV, commercials, soaps, that sort of thing.
The worst ones are the retrospectives when guests recall phenomena that occurred when they were barely three years old – but they’re easy viewing and among the obvious observations, there are bound to a few moments on Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets worth catching.
Another programme you should watch while reading a book is Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World (DR2, Tue 20:55). Watched in its three-hour entirety will induce insomnia – pass out to the bit about his love of Eastern mysticism, and your dreams will be groovy man. Harrison was always a bit strange. He once cheated death by chanting “Hare Krishna” at the man who was stabbing him – not sure this would have made most people stop.
Somebody should have stopped them making Ben Hur. There can’t be many miniseries actually shorter than the original movie, but this is one of them. Just 5.7 is not a good score on IMBD, but hey, you’re going to tune in for the chariot race, right?
Better rated (65 on Metacritic) is the first season of The Defenders (TV2 Zulu, Sun 07:40), but would you Adam and Eve it m’lord, it’s another legal eagle drama. How many of these things can we take?
Elsewhere, it’s a week of insight into lost civilisations in The Last Aztec (both episodes from DRK, Wed 20:00); US-Mexico illegal migration activities in The Border (DR HD, Fri 20:00 & Wed 22:20); Simon & Garfunkel (SV2, Sat 19:00 & Tue 23:00); The Story of Jesus (SV2, Mon-Wed 18:00); and the making of Tom’s Diner – Suzanne Vega (DRK, Tue 20:30). And finally, Sport Relief (BBC Ent, Sun 18:00) gets a screening a week after being shown in the UK.
