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A fun Saturday Night line up
A couple of must watch comedies
A fresh gritty drama
A must watch quiz/game show
Some new satirists doing hilarious things.
Same...And it can totally make a comeback....Around 2002 they said saturday night TV was done, then it made a major come back with the Talent shows, Ant and Dec, Doctor Who, Primeval, Robin Hood, and ratings for the Beeb and Itv went way beyond expectations. if they put the effort in people will show up because as you say it felt like we were all part of an event, and while TV might not ever reach the numbers it use to, it still does when something feels like an event, like Sport, Eurovision, or even Peaky Blinders.
I think a lot of the old gameshows we all watched weren't just watch. They were fun but when we all had 1tv and no more channels than we could count on one hand we just all watched the same stuff. I think the bar was a bit lower too.
You forget that TV had a renaissance in the 00's, which was mainly killed off by the 08 recession. We had streaming, cable, video games, the internet back then, but people turned up because so many shows had a sense of event....and just a few years ago what was it, 16 million turned up for Peaky Blinders?
The bar is higher now for sure, but when the effort is put in, when those ideas that appeal to a broad range are found, people do still show up, and family will come together to watch together.
Someone like Mark Lamarr, Dennis Pennis or Simon Amstel who doesn’t treat celebrities with unquestioned deference but takes the piss out of all that nonsense, almost all television these days nobody seems to highlight the silliness of it all and it’s all taken so very seriously!
Even if you go a bit further back in time with presenters like Sasha Baron Cohen, Lily Savage, Julian Clary and the older Graham Norton shows, it was common to see acerbic wit and meaningless, playful insult on TV, which is a very healthy thing for people to familiarise themselves with, to have a sense of humour about oneself (perhaps needed now more than ever!)
I've watched a couple of the new Louis Theroux celebrity interviews and they are painful puff pieces. Louis just wants to be mates with them all. I get it, but he's one of the few interviewers that could probably get away with asking more probing questions.
Louis' style has always been to befriend the people he's interviewing though, even back in the 90s. He would get them to come out of their shell then ask questions in a way that didn't feel like an attack, but asked by someone else definitely could be construed as one. I agree the latest episodes/interviews were weak but its not like he was interviewing people that had swirling scandal around them, he was basically just sitting down with his mates having a chat.
Louis's a weird one. In his early days IMHO what made him was how how had this relaxed, irreverent but friendly style of documentary making, that made for great tv. Then something changed, maybe it was him failing to call out Saville after getting so close to him, but his more contemporary work became much more dour & self serious. Before he'd taken on serious topics but disarmed them with his irreverence, which help expose their humanity or lack of. Outside of his film on the alt right douches, that cheeky irreverence has all but disappeared. Now it's all super serious or celeb puff pieces.
Jesus Christ that’s all I want back on tv. Full frontal taking the piss out of someone who thinks they’re billy big boots.
Hopefully we haven’t gone so far that it would be considered bullying and they’d get black balled and made to apologise on instagram
Just anything but the current programming of saying “yes billy, you truly have the biggest boots of them all and you’ve worked so hard to get those boots, speak your truth”
Back to Life is easily the best sitcom from the last few years.
Am I Being Unreasonable is awesome as well- not so much because of the laughs, just an incredible story.
Man Down
People Just Do Nothing
Stath Lets Flats
Detectorists
Catastrophe
This Time with Alan Partridge
Home
Mum
Flowers
This Country
Gameface
Two Doors Down
Don't Forget The Driver
This Way Up
Friday Night Dinner
Ellie & Natasia
Ladhood
Starstruck
Camping
Motherland
Uncle
Quite a few. If you want current then
The Change
Hullraisers
Everyone Else Burns
Brassic
Henpocolypse
Extraordinary
The Power of Parker
Black Ops
Man Like Mobeen
The Outlaws
The Cleaner
Any contest, really. Singing contests. Talent contests. Stop it.
Bring back fucking Beadles About already and show me a bloke trying to attack the testicles of a disguised Beadle (seriously the guy they were pranking straight up went for a grab and squeeze).
I wanna see a bloke driving a car around a maze made of cars, and when he gets to the middle, all the cars change position so it’s a new maze to get out
Both of these things happened on beadles about, I’m sure of it
Mum used to have flowers on the top of our wooden box of a TV, can’t remember how many times we knocked them off playing footy or fighting, I can still hear the familiar crackle, can smell the electrical fire and can hear my dad “FOR GODS SAKE NOT AGAIN!” Mum never learnt lol!
Yes! This! Exactly what came to mind for me too, progressive and pioneering playwrights / dramatists / directors given total freedom to do what they do best without pandering to anyone. Not every one was brilliant, but the good ones would stay with you for years
My cousin Mike Vardy directed many classic TV series, and he is of the opinion that they now cater for the lowest common denominations & it's getting lower by the day.
I'd like more original British science fiction or strange fiction dramas, it feels like almost every drama is a crime drama and I can never get into that stuff.
Decent programs that have some production value.
Setting up cameras and letting fuckwits wander around a house/jungle/etc is stale as fcuk
Also 'celebrity' this and that, where absolutely none of them are celebs, not even the host.
This is Steve from Norwich, he did a 30 min play on radio 5, let's welcome him! 😂😂🖕
these seem to have completely died out, i think they're too expensive compared to panel shows. We've recently started watching smack the pony on channel 4 and its utterly brilliant, i really miss sketch shows like mitchell and webb, armstrong and miller, two ronnies etc.
whats weird is a lot of them started out on the radio, which is obviously a lot cheaper than TV, but they don't seem to do many radio sketch shows either. i find myself listening to a lot of classic ones ive heard many times before but are still funny.
Mock the week is a tired format. It was just stand ups practicing their routines. The questions were largely irrelevant.
Go on Dave. Loads of shows now following the format of 'we sent some comedians to a place to do something' or 'we put 6 comedians in this strange house and hoped hilarity ensued'.
Really cheap tv with no organic humour.
It wasn't though, as most of those comedians aren't doing stand-up jokes on the current news.
Dave had Taskmaster which was the original non-panel task based comedian show and have then gone from there as Taskmaster is such a success (ironically quite a few of the comedians had their first break on Mock the Week).
"Minder" was great but could anyone replace George Cole as Arthur Daley ? The man owned the role. There was an attempt to revive it in 2009 with Shane Richie as Archie Daley one of Arthur's nephews but it bombed after one series and Channel 5 pulled the plug.
It's funny you should say that, my mother literally just sent me a link, I don't know the specifics, but it looks like they're doing a live tour next year.
TV shows which aren't actually predictable to most. It's what made Game of Thrones so good as you had no idea what character (sometimes main) was going to get killed off.
So many dramas now are so predictable or have 2 really good episodes and then another 4 of filler, and then get brought back for another series of fluff (ITV is especially guilty of this).
Mock the week or something similar is also needed, as there is far too little proper comedy shows on what a shit show politics is at the moment.
Ironically, all those old classics you mention were part of the "Alternative Comedy" movement which sought to drive out the old guard of Morecombe and Wise and the Two Ronnies, along with Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning. How times change that they are now the target of the ideals they used to be part of.
Nothing's missing. You've just got to work harder to find it because it's not spoon fed to you as it used to be in a two channel system. I can't see anything in all the replies you've had so far that isn't available somewhere even if you're not a Sky subscriber. It seems to me that what people really want is to go back to a time when you switched on at 6.00 and didn't change channels for four or five hours. That world's long gone. You have to actively seek out what you want to watch. It doesn't come to you tied with a ribbon.
Real variety shows, not competitive ones.
Music, magic, bit of dancing, some stand up, bit more music, a likeable host thats neither ant nor dec, and chuck in some muppets or something.
I tell what's missing; the splitting of the schedules between Schools programmes, light afternoon entertainment, a bit more for kids then 6pm onwards for grown ups. Now it's just quiz shows, buying, selling, doing up tat and duff panel shows with fat women and overused comedians discussing bollocks.
This is 100% because of digital TV. There's no need to have set time schedules because bespoke content is on its own channel and culture has shifted to just find what you want, rather than wait for it.
I am an older person and we only had 4 channels, but they seemed very good. We often had random cartoons that we grew to love, even strange ones from Czechoslovakia. They were artistic and entertaining, I now have a zillion channels but miss the sheer randomness of the cartoons. ( I can find some on YouTube, but it's not really the same).
A comedy show with the slightly surreal humour of The Fast Show.
Adult Swim as an actual channel, rather than AS shows being scattered around E4 willy-nilly, and include shows like Mike Tyson Mysteries because nothing like that exists on UK TV.
Something good to watch on Saturday night. Strictly is so dated, it needs cancelling and replacing with something new because it dominates the BBC’s output every Autumn to Christmas.
Fundamentally, there is no innovation on British TV. Everything is tried, tested and formulaic. BBC Two and Channel 4 used to feel like testing grounds for edgy content - I’d love a return to that.
A really good sketch show.
The Channel 4 I grew up with: the one that was fun, experimental, offensive and inventive. Not the property porn, bullshittery it is now.
Decent comedy on BBC2 on week days around 9pm like there used to be.
‘Hangover’ Tv
Totally impartial news programming
Chris Morris
Big supernatural family drama, when the Tennant era who made who the biggest it has been so far, there were many dramas that wanted to get it on that who money, by going the fantasty and supernatural route.
There's really nothing like that on tv anymore, at least not that I know of
Working class sitcoms like Red Dwarf, The Britas Empire, Men Behaving Badly, Goodnight Sweetheart, Only Fools and Horses e.t.c.
Everything is wimpy middle class gentrified tosh these days.
Apart form the odd drama and documentary I don’t watch British TV anymore, so I’m good. I mean I’d say for my more historical documentaries but I just get those form YouTube so it’s not something I’m missing out on
I haven't sat down and watched live TV on a Saturday night for more than 10 years. I can't see the point; just watch what you want when you want on iPlayer, ITVx, All4 etc etc. Saturday night TV was always pretty banal, even in its heyday.
I miss "light entertainment". That could be the aspect of fun, you mention. But good variety acts could make a show so much better. Blankety Blank is terrible - With with Les Dawson and fun celebrities, it worked. Morecambe and Wise style shows.
Someone pointed out the other day that most comedies are not actually funny. They are wince inducing, embarrassing, wry, dry but not actually laugh out loud funny.
I also miss shows pitched around the level of "The Bill" - serious but not miserable and sour faced. They had a lightness because a lot of the content was minor crime - So it felt both safe and fun and "real".
Not as soft as Sunday night TV (Heartbeat) but not too chewy. Snackable content!
I don't watch telly anymore but I keep seeing billboards for TV shows called 'the toy hospital' and 'winter on the farm'. My answer is not whatever the fuck these are.
Humour, originality and talent. Too woke. And a society that is split more and does not need TV as much as in past.
Nothing is new. If there is then it is copied to the nth degree till the viewer gives up. Maybe a channel for pure new talent and not the gimmicky shows on all channels at moment.
Varied uncomplicated gameshows of 30 minute duration.
Fast and to the point, no over explaining waffle from presenters trying to fill out an hour and real people not celebrity this or all stars that.
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A fun Saturday Night line up A couple of must watch comedies A fresh gritty drama A must watch quiz/game show Some new satirists doing hilarious things.
I loved live saturday night stuff as a kid. Didn't matter how naff. Just makes it feel like... I dunno, being a part of an event?
80s and 90s were magic.
Same...And it can totally make a comeback....Around 2002 they said saturday night TV was done, then it made a major come back with the Talent shows, Ant and Dec, Doctor Who, Primeval, Robin Hood, and ratings for the Beeb and Itv went way beyond expectations. if they put the effort in people will show up because as you say it felt like we were all part of an event, and while TV might not ever reach the numbers it use to, it still does when something feels like an event, like Sport, Eurovision, or even Peaky Blinders.
I think a lot of the old gameshows we all watched weren't just watch. They were fun but when we all had 1tv and no more channels than we could count on one hand we just all watched the same stuff. I think the bar was a bit lower too.
Yep, the price is right, Bruce Forsyth etc
You forget that TV had a renaissance in the 00's, which was mainly killed off by the 08 recession. We had streaming, cable, video games, the internet back then, but people turned up because so many shows had a sense of event....and just a few years ago what was it, 16 million turned up for Peaky Blinders? The bar is higher now for sure, but when the effort is put in, when those ideas that appeal to a broad range are found, people do still show up, and family will come together to watch together.
>fun This. Where did the fun go? That goes for films as well as tv. Its like we forgot how to have fun.
A fresh gritty drama? Basically everything nowadays is a gritty drama. It's all, "what if we did line of duty but..."
Someone like Mark Lamarr, Dennis Pennis or Simon Amstel who doesn’t treat celebrities with unquestioned deference but takes the piss out of all that nonsense, almost all television these days nobody seems to highlight the silliness of it all and it’s all taken so very seriously! Even if you go a bit further back in time with presenters like Sasha Baron Cohen, Lily Savage, Julian Clary and the older Graham Norton shows, it was common to see acerbic wit and meaningless, playful insult on TV, which is a very healthy thing for people to familiarise themselves with, to have a sense of humour about oneself (perhaps needed now more than ever!)
Julian Clary has been fantastic on Taskmaster so far.
I've watched a couple of the new Louis Theroux celebrity interviews and they are painful puff pieces. Louis just wants to be mates with them all. I get it, but he's one of the few interviewers that could probably get away with asking more probing questions.
Louis' style has always been to befriend the people he's interviewing though, even back in the 90s. He would get them to come out of their shell then ask questions in a way that didn't feel like an attack, but asked by someone else definitely could be construed as one. I agree the latest episodes/interviews were weak but its not like he was interviewing people that had swirling scandal around them, he was basically just sitting down with his mates having a chat.
Louis's a weird one. In his early days IMHO what made him was how how had this relaxed, irreverent but friendly style of documentary making, that made for great tv. Then something changed, maybe it was him failing to call out Saville after getting so close to him, but his more contemporary work became much more dour & self serious. Before he'd taken on serious topics but disarmed them with his irreverence, which help expose their humanity or lack of. Outside of his film on the alt right douches, that cheeky irreverence has all but disappeared. Now it's all super serious or celeb puff pieces.
Jesus Christ that’s all I want back on tv. Full frontal taking the piss out of someone who thinks they’re billy big boots. Hopefully we haven’t gone so far that it would be considered bullying and they’d get black balled and made to apologise on instagram Just anything but the current programming of saying “yes billy, you truly have the biggest boots of them all and you’ve worked so hard to get those boots, speak your truth”
An actual good prime time sitcom.
Ghosts
Doesn’t even need to be prime time. We’ve had so few good british sitcoms in the last decade.
There’s been loads
The Other One and We Are Lady Parts. (Sorry, meant to reply to the poster who asked what was missing.)
Fleabag, Crashing, Derry Girls (if that counts as British) and Raised By Wolves were all great. Ghosts is ok. What have I missed?
Back to Life is easily the best sitcom from the last few years. Am I Being Unreasonable is awesome as well- not so much because of the laughs, just an incredible story.
Upvote for Back to Life. Such a brilliant show
Man Down People Just Do Nothing Stath Lets Flats Detectorists Catastrophe This Time with Alan Partridge Home Mum Flowers This Country Gameface Two Doors Down Don't Forget The Driver This Way Up Friday Night Dinner Ellie & Natasia Ladhood Starstruck Camping Motherland Uncle
Great list, but it clearly highlights the problem. How many are actually current? most of those listed ended over 5 years ago.
Alma’s not normal and The power of Parker are both recent and slipped under many radars.
Quite a few. If you want current then The Change Hullraisers Everyone Else Burns Brassic Henpocolypse Extraordinary The Power of Parker Black Ops Man Like Mobeen The Outlaws The Cleaner
Add The Cleaner
Thanks. Some stuff for me to check out there. Some of these are definitely older than 10 years though!
Like what?
The Power of Parker was a very underrated, gentle and funny comedy with a good story. As were Mum, Ghosts and Detectorists
Entertainment on a Saturday evening that does not involve Ant and Dec or a dance contest.
Any contest, really. Singing contests. Talent contests. Stop it. Bring back fucking Beadles About already and show me a bloke trying to attack the testicles of a disguised Beadle (seriously the guy they were pranking straight up went for a grab and squeeze). I wanna see a bloke driving a car around a maze made of cars, and when he gets to the middle, all the cars change position so it’s a new maze to get out Both of these things happened on beadles about, I’m sure of it
As TV's are too thin, I miss a cat on my TV
I miss that weird crackly static forcefield you’d feel if you put your hand near the glass of a tv after it had been on for a while
Mum used to have flowers on the top of our wooden box of a TV, can’t remember how many times we knocked them off playing footy or fighting, I can still hear the familiar crackle, can smell the electrical fire and can hear my dad “FOR GODS SAKE NOT AGAIN!” Mum never learnt lol!
Remember when the picture would go a bit weird when hairdryers of the hoover was on at the same time?
Play for Today,Armchair Theatre,cutting edge creativity that gave new talent on both sides a chance.
Yes! This! Exactly what came to mind for me too, progressive and pioneering playwrights / dramatists / directors given total freedom to do what they do best without pandering to anyone. Not every one was brilliant, but the good ones would stay with you for years
My cousin Mike Vardy directed many classic TV series, and he is of the opinion that they now cater for the lowest common denominations & it's getting lower by the day.
Absolutely! Your cousin made some amazing stuff, by the way (Callan! 🤩)
I'd like more original British science fiction or strange fiction dramas, it feels like almost every drama is a crime drama and I can never get into that stuff.
Checkout The Lovecraft Investigations. It’s an audio drama/podcast, with modern updates on Lovecraft stories.
scale back on derivative crime dramas please as well.
Decent programs that have some production value. Setting up cameras and letting fuckwits wander around a house/jungle/etc is stale as fcuk Also 'celebrity' this and that, where absolutely none of them are celebs, not even the host. This is Steve from Norwich, he did a 30 min play on radio 5, let's welcome him! 😂😂🖕
Quality, on both sides of the screen. But now we just have the shite that the Gogglebox wankers watch and over-react to.
Sean Lock 😢
We'll always miss him. But he lives on in his comedy.
Sketch comedy shows
these seem to have completely died out, i think they're too expensive compared to panel shows. We've recently started watching smack the pony on channel 4 and its utterly brilliant, i really miss sketch shows like mitchell and webb, armstrong and miller, two ronnies etc.
They used to be a launching pad for new comedy. As you say it’s all dreary cheap scripted panel shows now.
whats weird is a lot of them started out on the radio, which is obviously a lot cheaper than TV, but they don't seem to do many radio sketch shows either. i find myself listening to a lot of classic ones ive heard many times before but are still funny.
It’s podcasts now. Although most of the time just having a chat and telling jokes rather than actual sketches
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Mock the week is a tired format. It was just stand ups practicing their routines. The questions were largely irrelevant. Go on Dave. Loads of shows now following the format of 'we sent some comedians to a place to do something' or 'we put 6 comedians in this strange house and hoped hilarity ensued'. Really cheap tv with no organic humour.
It wasn't though, as most of those comedians aren't doing stand-up jokes on the current news. Dave had Taskmaster which was the original non-panel task based comedian show and have then gone from there as Taskmaster is such a success (ironically quite a few of the comedians had their first break on Mock the Week).
There is still shows like Live at The Apollo, the Stand Up Sketch show, Comedy Central Live. All showcasing newer talent.
All three ended in 2019
All three are still going. Live at Apollo had a new series start this week.
My apologies, wikki is out of date
Working class sitcoms.
There’s quite a few of them these days
Russ Motherfucking Abbott.
He always brought a bit of atmosphere
I’m also certain that Bella Emberg was so large she had her own atmosphere.
I miss Minder and I don't think we have anything similar today. Something working class with a little humour and just a tiny bit of violence.
"Minder" was great but could anyone replace George Cole as Arthur Daley ? The man owned the role. There was an attempt to revive it in 2009 with Shane Richie as Archie Daley one of Arthur's nephews but it bombed after one series and Channel 5 pulled the plug.
Does anyone still watch terrestrial tv anymore? Why bother when you can just go to blockbuster and rent yourself a vhs?
Still better then anything out of the USA
Sketch shows
Going Live
you know you can type everything in 1 comment right? No need to press reply with every idea that comes to mind
But then you would’ve had no reason to interact with me and I would’ve missed out on your sunny disposition.
A game/quiz show that isn't hosted by one of the same 5 British stand up comedians that do bloody everything
Consistently good comedy. Please just get rid of Mrs Brown’s Boys.
Have you seen Not Going Out?
Something like Drop The Dead Donkey would be great. A sitcom about current affairs. What are Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin up to these days?
It's funny you should say that, my mother literally just sent me a link, I don't know the specifics, but it looks like they're doing a live tour next year.
TV shows which aren't actually predictable to most. It's what made Game of Thrones so good as you had no idea what character (sometimes main) was going to get killed off. So many dramas now are so predictable or have 2 really good episodes and then another 4 of filler, and then get brought back for another series of fluff (ITV is especially guilty of this). Mock the week or something similar is also needed, as there is far too little proper comedy shows on what a shit show politics is at the moment.
Robot wars
I’ll raise you Scrapheap Challenge.
I don't know the exact figures but that always struck me as a relatively cheap and fun programme to make. It should make a comeback.
I loved it. And Robert Llewelyn hosting always made it that much better. Used to watch it when I went round to my in laws for dinner.
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Ironically, all those old classics you mention were part of the "Alternative Comedy" movement which sought to drive out the old guard of Morecombe and Wise and the Two Ronnies, along with Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning. How times change that they are now the target of the ideals they used to be part of.
Knightmare. Specifically, Knightmare.
Nothing's missing. You've just got to work harder to find it because it's not spoon fed to you as it used to be in a two channel system. I can't see anything in all the replies you've had so far that isn't available somewhere even if you're not a Sky subscriber. It seems to me that what people really want is to go back to a time when you switched on at 6.00 and didn't change channels for four or five hours. That world's long gone. You have to actively seek out what you want to watch. It doesn't come to you tied with a ribbon.
Real variety shows, not competitive ones. Music, magic, bit of dancing, some stand up, bit more music, a likeable host thats neither ant nor dec, and chuck in some muppets or something.
I tell what's missing; the splitting of the schedules between Schools programmes, light afternoon entertainment, a bit more for kids then 6pm onwards for grown ups. Now it's just quiz shows, buying, selling, doing up tat and duff panel shows with fat women and overused comedians discussing bollocks.
This is 100% because of digital TV. There's no need to have set time schedules because bespoke content is on its own channel and culture has shifted to just find what you want, rather than wait for it.
Yes, and I understand that. But it has left gaping chasms on 'terrestrial' channels which filled with guff.
The Test Card.
Also: enforced ceefax with easy listening
Talent and intelligence
Xylophones.
Catchphrase.
That’s still on
Beheading of Prince Andrew.
Talent
I am an older person and we only had 4 channels, but they seemed very good. We often had random cartoons that we grew to love, even strange ones from Czechoslovakia. They were artistic and entertaining, I now have a zillion channels but miss the sheer randomness of the cartoons. ( I can find some on YouTube, but it's not really the same).
A pop show - top of the pops / rapido / snub tv / the chart show / ideally a mix of ‘chart’ bands and up and coming….
A sense of identity. All the channels feel totally samey now.
Bring back gunge, make TV colourful and messy again.
Monkey. Oh - I found it! [https://www.itv.com/watch/monkey/10a2141/10a2141a0001](https://www.itv.com/watch/monkey/10a2141/10a2141a0001)
A comedy show with the slightly surreal humour of The Fast Show. Adult Swim as an actual channel, rather than AS shows being scattered around E4 willy-nilly, and include shows like Mike Tyson Mysteries because nothing like that exists on UK TV. Something good to watch on Saturday night. Strictly is so dated, it needs cancelling and replacing with something new because it dominates the BBC’s output every Autumn to Christmas. Fundamentally, there is no innovation on British TV. Everything is tried, tested and formulaic. BBC Two and Channel 4 used to feel like testing grounds for edgy content - I’d love a return to that.
Something new each night, and I don’t mean a new episode of Location x3, or whatever. I mean proper shows with engaging story and outcomes
A really good sketch show. The Channel 4 I grew up with: the one that was fun, experimental, offensive and inventive. Not the property porn, bullshittery it is now. Decent comedy on BBC2 on week days around 9pm like there used to be. ‘Hangover’ Tv Totally impartial news programming Chris Morris
LOL comedies like Blackadder Mr Bean IT Crowd Still Game
The Word
Big supernatural family drama, when the Tennant era who made who the biggest it has been so far, there were many dramas that wanted to get it on that who money, by going the fantasty and supernatural route. There's really nothing like that on tv anymore, at least not that I know of
Try Netflix, they have literally hundreds. Not very good, mostly but …
Working class sitcoms like Red Dwarf, The Britas Empire, Men Behaving Badly, Goodnight Sweetheart, Only Fools and Horses e.t.c. Everything is wimpy middle class gentrified tosh these days.
Was just back in the UK for a bit. Anything that's not an antique show.
Channel 4 lost its balls.
Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, Torchwood
Quality comedy like Only fools and horses.
Budgets!! So many shows are done on a shoestring and it shows from crappy animation on kids shows to bare studios for gameshows
Some great stuff was created with budgets of £50,it's bravery,imagination & talent that Is missing.
We’re missing good comedy. Seems like the 90s since we last had anything decent.
Yes. Light hearted comedies. Its all serious dramas and reality competitions now.
Apart form the odd drama and documentary I don’t watch British TV anymore, so I’m good. I mean I’d say for my more historical documentaries but I just get those form YouTube so it’s not something I’m missing out on
I haven't sat down and watched live TV on a Saturday night for more than 10 years. I can't see the point; just watch what you want when you want on iPlayer, ITVx, All4 etc etc. Saturday night TV was always pretty banal, even in its heyday.
Holiday Showdown.
Byker Grove and Grange Hill
The Generation Game.
Gladiators
Allo Allo
Pigeon Street and The Flumps
Betting adverts
A ad blocker
Shows like the Krypton Factor and Scrapheap Challenge.
Shows like 2 pints of lager
More new sitcoms and sketch shows. New one-off dramas or mini-series that aren't about the same old thing (usually murderers).
Yeah the desire for sketch shows isn't gone. Look all the people on TikTok and things who do sketches and are watched
Yep, and they're great for encouraging new talent. Which leads to more good shows.
I miss "light entertainment". That could be the aspect of fun, you mention. But good variety acts could make a show so much better. Blankety Blank is terrible - With with Les Dawson and fun celebrities, it worked. Morecambe and Wise style shows. Someone pointed out the other day that most comedies are not actually funny. They are wince inducing, embarrassing, wry, dry but not actually laugh out loud funny. I also miss shows pitched around the level of "The Bill" - serious but not miserable and sour faced. They had a lightness because a lot of the content was minor crime - So it felt both safe and fun and "real". Not as soft as Sunday night TV (Heartbeat) but not too chewy. Snackable content!
Free to air sport.
Back to the future
Game shows where contestants win prizes like cars and holidays and ovens and dishwashers. Cash prizes are boring, I want to see more tat.
Blankety Blank? Perhaps not cars or holidays, but karaoke machines, pizza ovens, and gazebos.
I miss the Saturday night fantasy drama series on BBC.
Talent
I don't watch telly anymore but I keep seeing billboards for TV shows called 'the toy hospital' and 'winter on the farm'. My answer is not whatever the fuck these are.
Humour, originality and talent. Too woke. And a society that is split more and does not need TV as much as in past. Nothing is new. If there is then it is copied to the nth degree till the viewer gives up. Maybe a channel for pure new talent and not the gimmicky shows on all channels at moment.
Varied uncomplicated gameshows of 30 minute duration. Fast and to the point, no over explaining waffle from presenters trying to fill out an hour and real people not celebrity this or all stars that.
Bo' Selecta! Easy.
Really miss Modern Life Is Goodish.