I just love ‘sharks & Nazi’s’ documentaries on the television, don’t you?
I spend most of my viewing hours glued to high numbered television channels...
Most evenings around 8pm, it's usually just about the time that we all decide upon what we will watch on the television that night. Happily, for most couples, this separation of ‘them and us' is mostly taken in good part, as let's face it, nobody wants to watch either football or some dreadful over-heated soap-opera drama together and actually pretend to actually like or enjoy either disagreeable option. If maybe like me, that you have a wonderfully close relationship with your partner in life, but - mostly cannot abide her televisual choices for all sorts of reasons. I have to say that in this regard, she is the more understanding and liberal when it comes to - what to watch - on the box of an evening. Getting the British Sunday papers on a regular basis, we are constantly prompted into watching all the new and cutting edge television dramas and sometimes I am steered in the direction of these as you might expect. However, sometimes the very chorus of acclimation for some such fourparter actually puts me off to some degree. Many a time, when I avoid a preproclaimed 5 star drama, I am mocked for my intransigence and lack of imagination when declining to watch an over-hyped television series. Nevertheless, I have to say that for every one of the promised “Life changing televisual experience” mostly I/we get a certain amount of overhyped anticipation, allied to a development I'd worked out within about ten minutes of the overlong supposed twisted turns of the rather basic plot line. If we put to one side the absolute crassness of most modern-day soap operas and there equally predictable spin-offs, the only decent thing left on our television screens most weekday evenings are what my son-in-law calls the “Sharks & Nazi's” documentary genre. Alas, the lad knows me all too well I'm afraid, because I spend most of my viewing hours glued to high numbered television channels (No, not them!) where I like to consider either in some depth, subjects as diverse as the Spanish Civil War - Henry VIII and his advisors, or maybe the DDay Landings and their military consequences. As you can see, I can be even more boring as you thought possible, but - better this sort of stuff, rather than endless editions of people cooking stuff and occasionally singing stuff for our supposed entertainment. Seriously, I am often mocked for my liking and appreciation of televisual documentaries, but I really don't care, as I find them both extremely relatable and on occasions incredibly entertaining, which on occasions seems more than a little weird to some of my family and friends.
So there we are then - are you happy to sit through yet another ‘police procedural' drama where you spot the ‘baddie' ten minutes into the first episode, or do you wish to know the nature of the oceans most deadly creature, or perhaps why Josef Stalin never expected the Nazi invasion of Russia even though every diplomat outside of Germany told him it was about to happen? Nevertheless, I do occasionally like ‘proper' television, especially when someone does try to expand the possibilities of televised drama as we know it.
In overstating my case
(as I always do), I am fully aware that television drama - can and occasionally does hit-its-mark, and when it does, even I, as a fully-paid-up
‘S&N' enthusiast, has to bend-theknee to what occasionally is featured on our televisions - but, not that often!