Back in a Bit

I think there are only very few people who don’t shuffle with embarrassment when the BBC attempts to wrap a game show around the lottery results. I mean they really are truly awful, but they’ve now become part of the furniture so I suppose we’ll be stuck with them until someone can think up a really good excuse to take the lottery results away from the BBC. It’ll have to be a really good excuse too, because truisms such as “that’s not the role of a public-service broadcaster” still, amazingly, don’t cut it. The BBC doesn’t care about ratings my arse.

At the same time, BBC Two almost makes a smart move, be repeating the most recent episode of Michael Palin’s New Europe, for anyone that might have missed it last week. Although in danger of BBC Two being simply BBC One +1 (week), I cannot criticise commissioning high-quality programming and then trumpeting it loudly. I think three repeats in rapid succession is entirely acceptable, for the benefit of those who occasionally step away from their television, or neglect to set the recording apparatus.

The same kind of thing is happening on BBC Three, where (stone the crows!) it’s a rerun of a recent Top Gear. But wait, you say, hasn’t Top Gear been on all damn day over on this new commercial channel Dave? Indeed it has - but I don’t think this tells us as much about the channels repeating it as it does about the programme itself. Simply put, Top Gear is a highly repeatable show. So repeatable, in fact, that it’s hard to tell whether or not this is by design. But, again, it’s an example of how hard you can flog quality programming, providing you do so in a timely manner.

Top Gear is an example of solid, entertaining journalism. Of course, journalism takes many forms, and you wouldn’t apply this style to coverage of events in a war zone, but it’s exactly right for what it is. As an example of how well it works, my step-mother is a fan of the show, despite freely admitting to having little or no interest in or knowledge of cars. So, taking a motoring magazine and giving it wide appeal - that’s successful, high-quality programming.

It’s approaching that time when we hear the words “…switch over to ITV2 now for…” more of this detritus. Okay, so I may have partially added my own interpretation, but nevertheless The X Factor swings from ITV1 to ITV2, leaving room for All Star Family Fortunes - the wonderfully self-consciously tasteless game show given new life by taking out the real contestants and ushering in “celebrities” of sorts. And would you believe it, it’s that chick again! The one that fronts Streetmate who looks like that other chick. You know the one I mean - the one who co-presented that reality show and that celebrity game show who looks like that other one who co-presented that reality show on the other side… oh, and she did that celebrity game show too. Not the one doing Streetmate, the other one. Anyway it’s not her, it is the one that fronts Streetmate, and here she is again! Well I never.

Of course, some good does come out of all this - the movement of The X Factor does relieve ITV2 viewers of The Planet’s Funniest Animals and a quick blast of Movies Now. ITV3 viewers, if such people exist, have no such luck, and are left with Police, Camera, Action. Salvation from this comes in the shape of a rerun of The Sweeney, which will no-doubt delight men of a certain age - if they’re not putting the kids to bed or watching Top Gear.

Now somehow, as if by magic, some of the various Channel 4s start to rescue themselves around this time of night. Channel 4 itself runs what looks like a fairly interesting, if a little grizzly, documentary on the subject of Antarctic expedition, and finally More 4 gets off the property ladder to screen Bremner, Bird and Fortune - one of the last big cornerstones of organised satire to be found anywhere on the schedule.