Television

You are right: there are great American series... I was a big fan of Sopranos, love G.O.T. and a few others. Rome was actually quite good historically speaking...

I wonder if what Lustig points at is not simply an illusion. If he was to watch now the shows he used to enjoy as a kid, he may well realize that his standards have gone up....

" wonder if what Lustig points at is not simply an illusion. If he was to watch now the shows he used to enjoy as a kid, he may well realize that his standards have gone up...."

I'm pretty sure that he is using the present tense, and referring to present day programming.
America does produce some excellent series, as mentioned, but if a sample of the fillers we get on some of our less popular moron style channels are concerned, I would say that yes, on the whole, British everyday TV is superior to American.
We have the beeb channels for a start, which don't really go for all out dumbing down and there is nearly always one of their excellent docu's or thriller/detective programmes on one of their channels at any given time of day or night.
ITV and Channel 4 lean slightly more towards the crap end of the scale, but once again, they are both very good at churning out some great, intelligent entertainment during peak hours.

Even my French sis in Law (and her family) regularly ask me to record and send DVD's of various thrillers they've heard about.
Brit TV has been swamped with the umpteen channels of cable/sattelite crap that has infested the whole English speaking world, but with BBC1, 2, 3 and 4, ITV and Channel 4 in amongst them, there's still some intelligent viewing to be had most of the time.

...and why exactly are you then posting direct to a person who placed you on ignore? Surely it can't be due to your underwhelming intelligence as even you would realize making a scolding post to a person who placed you on ignore would not be seen.

Then again, maybe you are that dim...


Or perhaps you just enjoy feeling the computer keys jiggle under your fingertips...

And comparing it to what he used to watch as a kid.


I'll have to trust you on this one. I am familiar with US TV because I lived there, but never lived in the UK. Remember watching the series The Prisoner as a kid and loving it. And the Avengers of course, which we called "Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir" (melon hat and leather boots).

It's not hard to believe you though: state-sponsored TV can be a great way to raise the bar, when well funded. The French public TV includes a few pretty decent channels and still commands a large market share. In Italy, the Rai remains ok, far above the competition. In contrast, the US PBS is depressingly short of cash, which makes for a very gloomy product most of the time. Sesame St. is an exception (big fan here).

I used to watch the BBC world service at some point and was not terribly impressed by it, but then it's hard to make an exciting international news channel... Hard to NOT produce a bland and boring message when you speak to the whole world. Al Jazeera managed it for a few years... France 24 certainly never found the trick, and are happily throwing young, cute-but-boring faces at you to package their meager 'news'. As for CNN and FAUX, I find them simply unwatchable... They make me scream. I would rather throw a sledgehammer through the damn screen, really.

What were the worthwhile shows?

"And comparing it to what he used to watch as a kid."

You'll have to ask Lustig, but from reading his post, it certainly gives me the impression that he's referring to present day. If that was me, I would probably still be seeking out Brit channels and viewing them with a somewhat Brit perspective and memory, which helps greatly with the understanding of various in-jokes and nuances.

My brother has lived in France since 1982, and said that it took him ten years or more to fully understand the French ways. He now quite enjoys their TV, and says they have a real Pythonesque streak running through their humour sometimes.
When we go there, we sometimes sit and watch Swiss TV (he's near to Geneva). Now if you want to watch crap, try Swiss TV for a week. Unbelievably dull.

My dad likes to watch the French station/s we get here. Finds them very amusing (or laugh out loud silly on occasion).

I bet he loves anything by Louis de Funès.

To my mind, he was one of the comedy greats.

DONT forget the incessant appeals for money. In Philly , Harrisburg, and Baltimore (the 3 PBS stations we get), they are at a monthly appeal schedule now and they don't even apologize for the intrusions.
What psses for entertainment during the appeals are these douche-bag silly "pop Medicine","psychology" , "Investment strategies" nd "DOO WOP crap with 50's Italian boy bands "
(those make me gag-)

We get 2 premium services , HBO and another one (the one that ran Dexter-forget the network)

Those are pretty good cause its unfiltered

WE ALSO have a channel that shows a BURNING FIREPLACE with background muic

The Monty Pythons were always cult in France, including the Holy Grail sequence where they throw the cow. I recently showed Holy Grail to my 10-yr-old kid and had the feverish impression of sharing with him some super-valuable cultural heritage... :-) He particularly enjoyed the black knight, and of course the knights of ni... Next on my list is the Life of Brian but I guess I will have to teach him the gospels first... It can't be that funny when you don't know what's being parodied.

We still have our version of Spitting Image going on, often quite trashy, called Guignols de l'Info. They are a riot.

I just looked up the Z channel - I'm not the only one who remembers it. I was off by some years, as it started in '74; probably got with it after to be husband and I moved to a house and bought a tv together.

More about it as a prized tv channel -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Channel

10 year old?

He would love 'Horrible histories'. Check one or two out on youtube. Really funny AND educational.

I'll admit if money were no object, I might buy a tv again and figure out how to see programming I'm interested in with all the attendant added expense, but a) that won't happen, and b) I probably can more easily see what I want from netflix, movies/shows from them, and getting news from other sources as I do now, the news undoubtedly better explained/examined.

I may be a tv lapsed person but I keep up on reviews re movies and a lot of other stuff. This likely saves me a lot of aggravation.

Tx, will check.

The problem is that every American program worth watching seems to be on some pay channel these days, mainly HBO. Back in the day everything on the air was free and that's the only way I'm making comparisons between now and then -- the networks and basic cable.

Indeed, Internet is the future of TV.

Comedy: Ernie Kovacs, Carol Burnett, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, This was the Week that was. These days only SNL comes anywhere near to the quality of any of those shows. And speaking of Carol Burnett, whatever happened to the concept of variety shows? Gary Moore and others were, in effect, keeping vaudeville alive.

What sitcom today can compare with Seinfeld or even Cheers? All in the Family and all its spin-offs -- the Jeffersons, Maude, etc.

Crime dramas -- Columbo. Murder She Wrote, Baretta, others.

I could keep going.

Dexter was on Showtime.

In my opinion, both Showtime and HBO produce interesting and enjoyable programming.

I hear you, same problem everywhere, but there's a logic to it: if advertisers pay for what you're watching, they will ultimately decide what you can or cannot watch... Not directly but through a strong incentive for the channels to please the largest crowd and displease no one.

Hopefully he'll be online again soon(ish) and can let us know