Monday, November 19, 2007

Early Christmas?

I'm not quite sure what happened to Sunday night TV, but after several weeks of waiting for Top Gear to finish bleating on about cars so that they could do their stupid stuff, suddenly Sunday night TV required 3 videos recording simultaneously to do it justice. The Beeb's latest costume drama Cranford is both hilarious and thought-provoking. It's a note-perfect study of a community dealing with change, whether it's the new doctor and his new techniques (stitching a wound rather than amputating a limb), the working classes learning to read, or whether a woman should walk in public behind a funeral procession if she's the only remainin relative (brilliant scene where the upholder of all etiquette in the village, Miss Deborah, spends the evening 'in prayer and reflection', to decide whether to break the code she religiously enforces in order to demonstrate love to a neighbour). All this and Philip 'Life on Mars' Glenister too. Great stuff.

Then there were 2 cracking films (Spiderman, 21 grams), The Blair Years, a reminder of the genius of Kenny Everett, and the almost unwatchably grim Bulgarias Abandoned Children. Sadly, all of these were shown post-watershed, whilst prime time was colonised by Stricly Come Yawning, I'm a Nonentity Get Me Out of Here, and Antiques Roadshow. However, good Christians who were at a Sunday evening service would have got back just in time for the good stuff.

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