War, what is it good for? Television.
January 14th, 2006 at 23:59
I’ve just had the most excellent evening of television viewing thanks to the fantastic More 4. It’s an upmarket channel aimed at the over 35 ABC1 demographic, so I’m clearly in the target audience. Its like Channel 4 without all of the mindless crap that makes up half the schedule: Big Brother, T4, that sort of thing. This week it seeems to have dedicated its entire Saturday night schedule to the Iraqi war- mostly with a pleasingly anti-war stance.
TV Iraqi Style was a look at the impact of satellite television on post-Saddam Iraq. It turns out, that they have their own version of Pop Idol, and gameshows of a higher-calibre than Deal or No Deal (they have to answer questions to win stuff, in Iraq). I felt quite elitist, as my parents were watching the British version of Pop Idol or whatever shit ITV figuratively spewed and literally uplinked into the sick-bucket on the south bank that is the network distribution chain. Watching Iraqi Pop Idol in a language that I don’t understand was a much more educated and elitist pursuit.
Rory Bremner’s Beneath Iraq and a Hard Place was also fantastic. It was Rory and his “alright” impressions talking about the war. It touched on so-called alternative history, which I take an interest in.
Finally, yet another programme about the run-up to the war, this time with acted bits of people pretending to be Blair and Bush. They hadn’t gone as far as getting exact body doubles or trying to do impressions- they just did up “Tony”’s hair and got a vaguely gnome-like bloke to play Robin Cook. They spliced in real life footage of the real life people which made it inconsistent.
What I’m essentially getting at is although war is usually a bad thing, it makes TV much more watchable. I for one cannot wait for the liberation of Tehran.
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