I wrote about three years ago on the poor quality fare being served up on our TV screens here in the UK and I went on to praise the intelligent and entertaining programmes that were coming to our screens from the USA ('The Wire') and Scandinavia ('The Killing' and 'The Bridge').
Not a great deal has changed in those intervening years I'm afraid as far as UK TV is concerned. We still appear to be obsessed with reality programmes many of which deal with the lives of the super-rich or, at the other end of the social spectrum, those on benefits. Or soap operas which all appear to be bloody miserable, and now, to the myriad of cookery programmes we can also add baking. Yes, baking!
Good grief!
Thankfully we still get some great shows from the US and to those I listed last time, I can now add the wonderful 'Breaking Bad'. Possibly the best of all the great dramas to hit us from the states.
Of late, some relief has come in the form of some dramas from various parts of the world under the broad umbrella of 'Walter Presents'. Screened to us via Channel 4, the shows have included 'Deutchland 83', an espionage thriller set in the early 1980's at a time when East and West Germany were still divided and so called Cold War tensions were very high resulting in a strong belief that the nuclear button could be pressed at any time. Also I am currently engrossed in a French political drama that has been given the English title 'Spin'. We are now into Series 2 and it is coming across like a sexier version of 'House of Cards'. Well, it is French, so it would wouldn't it?
Getting in on the act of their Scandinavian neighbours and filling the same Saturday evening slot on BBC4 is the Icelandic crime drama 'Trapped'. It concerns a male torso pulled from the sea and believed to have come from a Danish ferry. The ship with its passengers and crew all have to be detained while an investigation is undertaken. The problem is that the investigating team are stranded in Reykjavik because of adverse weather, leaving the initial enquiries to be made by the overworked local cop. Having only seen the first two episodes I am totally gripped.
Of course it is not all bad in the UK. The BBC are always excellent at period dramas and they have excelled themselves with the twenty part 'Dickensian'. This is a kind of prequel to the great novels of Dickens, most notably 'A Christmas Carol', 'Oliver Twist' and 'Great Expectations'. The whole thing is centered around the murder of Jacob Marley and with just the right amount of tension and humour, and of course, the trademark BBC attention to detail - beautifully recreating the gas-lit, cobbled streets of Victorian London, it just had to be a winner. And it was, If that doesn't encourage more people to read the works of Dickens, then nothing will.
With the BBC adaptation of John le Carre's 'The Night Manager', the second series of 'Breaking Bad' spin-off, 'Better Call Saul' and of course the return after 13 years of 'The X-Files'. things are indeed looking up.
The trouble now is trying to find the time to watch them all.
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