My TV year started very late. On principle, I watch as little Italian TV as possible. I prefer to follow the advice of the graffiti in the photo: ‘Turn off the TV and turn your brain back on’.
Up until November, the only way of watching UK TV was to travel to Britain. But thanks to the Hide My Ass app I can now encrypt my internet activity and travel virtually to access online channels from most countries.
As an Englishman, my main interest is in BBC, ITV and Channel 4. The latter is the where I have discovered this year’s highlights.
The four part drama Top Boy was the first thing I tuned into. Scripted by Ronan Bennett, it didn’t quite live up to the hype of being a British take of The Wire but it still addressed some highly topical themes in an intelligent, non judgemental fashion.
One of the cool things about the 4OD (Channel 4 on demand) tool is that it gives viewers the change to catch up on programmes that have been broadcast a while back; this differs from the BBC i-player which usually pulls the plug on archived programmes after a month.
Two series I was able to view again from scratch were the comedy Fresh Meat and This Is England. The first tackled sex, drugs and university education with a healthy irreverence while Shane Meadow’s brilliant drama made you laugh and cry thanks to superb ensemble cast. Meanwhile the Black Mirror trilogy presented a plausibly pessimistic view on the technological revolution.
The most educational TV I watched was Mark Cousins’ Story of Film : An Odyssey which shed fresh light on familiar movies and provided a global perspective on cinema to prove that are still great films being made if you take the trouble to seek them out.
Even though British TV is superior to that in Italy (it could hardly be worse), my viewing options are still limited since I don’t watch reality shows, soaps, makeovers, TV chefs, game shows or X-factor . If I can keep my bullshit detector well tuned in 2012, I hope to find some quality drama, comedy and documentaries that stimulates rather than destroys my ageing brain cells.
