The Dark Ages of Television

Last week I popped up the coast to spend a few uninterrupted days on a writing project. My travelling companion of choice was my Nana, my waistline’s only known frenemy. In between thrusting bowls of peanuts, plates of sandwiches and glasses of wine under my nose, Nana brought me up to date with who has died/been married/had a baby/run away/planted a bomb on a bus on Home and Away, and answered the questions I couldn’t on Hot Seat.

Why was I watching Home and Away and Hot Seat (what is Hot Seat I hear you ask)? Because the TV only picked up two channels. 7 and 9. It was dire straits. And not just because The Bold and The Beautiful is on Channel 10 (although Nan was, thankfully, able to call Hilda every afternoon to get the necessary updates).

As a cable watcher, I am like a grain fed chicken. A goose being fattened for pate. I am used to choice; to new shows ferried over from the US and UK, old favourite reruns and movies, lots of movies. I am used to being able to have a handful of shows I genuinely enjoy at my fingertips and, if I’m in the mood, something from the ATP tour being televised. I am horribly spoilt for choice. I hear children crying in the streets and I tell them to eat cake.

And, scratching away in my luxury chicken-pen, I have been horribly out of touch with a dreadful revolution that has been taking place. A shift, imperceptible perhaps, to those tuning in on a daily basis, but a slap in the face for those accustomed to the midday-2pm Sex and the City, SVU binge.

What the hell happened to Australian television? Let me rephrase. When the hell did everything become

• reality
• dumbed down beyond all recognition
• reality and dumbed down beyond all recognition

( … and don’t even get me started on the news/current affairs et al. Oh my God, is sensationalism mandatory now? Has reporting the facts gone out of vogue? Is it uncool? Is it what all the kids at journalism school are doing these days?)

Reality television is no longer the much maligned but eagerly watched new kid on the block, as it may have been when Big Brother was first making waves … television, quite simply, is now nothing but reality.

We can’t all seriously be that desperate for reality TV. I know it’s a guilty indulgence for many of us, and a program a week (Top Model, Masterchef) can be an enjoyable way to spend an hour. But this is getting out of control. This is as if someone in the guilded network tower had too much to drink and in an inexplicable fit, passed a law that requires 90% of our television has to contain ‘real people’ and at least one (preferably all) of the following; a vet, a kitchen, a surfboard, an airport, a stupid child, a stupid parent, a former reality TV star host/narrator and a wildly improbable location/situation or a totally normal location/situation made to look wildly improbable (sick cat, messy kitchen, floating surfboard, angry businessman at airport, stupid child learning lesson, stupid parent learning lesson).

I know it’s cheap to make. And I know a really good reality television series will draw in viewers. But the networks are seriously underestimating their viewers if they think that’s all we want to see. It clearly isn’t all we want to see – the incredibly stupid TV Burp won’t last long because people aren’t, for the most part, hugely interested in incredibly stupid gags. The vomit worthy Australia’s Perfect Couple which you just know would be like spending an hour in close confines with a handpicked selection of your least liked kind of people, was on its last legs barely before the first episode finished.

I mean, how hard is it to pillage the abundance of talent in this country and come up with a drama that can snatch a Logie or two from Packed to the Rafters?  Or is that the problem? Are there not enough Logies to go around? Because I can whip up a few makeshift statuettes in time for next year’s ceremony if it means no child ever has to go hungry for decent television again.

Because, what’s next? What other basic acts of being human can we invade and exploit, how much further can we plunder the depths of the human condition, when all this really is, is a clear and offensive avoidance technique. The networks don’t want to spend the money. They don’t want to put in that little bit more to give you, their viewers, quality television. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they won’t. I suppose we’re just not worth it. We are, after all, simply the mindless consumers.

We cannot stay silent any longer, fellow Australians-with-an-excess-of-two-brain-cells. We cannot have them think this is what we want, nay this is what we, as tax paying citizens deserve, any longer. This is not the best we can do – it’s not even close. And as much as we can mindlessly zone in and out of, or ‘put up with’ some sort of cheap, contrived half hour of drivel over dinner, we shouldn’t have to; and we’re doing it at the expense of what this country’s creative people are truly capable of.

For we are not wanting for good actors, good writers, good directors. We are not wanting for good stories and innovative, funny, clever ways to tell them. But we are wanting for network executives who are willing to stretch a budget just that little bit further, beyond some smoking teenager swearing at a Mom from the Midwest for not letting her smoke in the house, to give those actors, writers and directors a chance.

Maybe they can make a reality series out of that … Dancing with Australia’s Secret Millionaire Network Executive Loser. I hear Axle Whitehead does a mean narration.

Images courtesy of Channel 7 and Channel 9