I’ve got an apology to make.
I may have lead readers of this blog in the past to believe that Channel 4 has “dumbed down” with vacuous programming filling up most of primetime after the worthy stuff has gone out against the soaps.
(Take a bow “The Search”, the latest feeble attempt to mimic the success of The Da Vinci Code, by being a weekly quiz show that globe trots around the world with a pretty young cast of competitors (plus one or two oldies) solving trivial clues to help crack a code. If it sounds like the recent “Codex” you’d be right. The only difference is that this time they get to step outside the British Museum.)
But I’m wrong. Yes – the days of Dance on 4, or primetime opera may have long gone, but Channel 4 is currently broadcasting something that’s nearly as epic as Andy Warhol’s film Sleep. After midnight the channel starts to stream live coverage from the “Celebrity” Big Brother house, and invariably, if you’re flicking around after the witching hour, they’re asleep. Now some might say that it’s because this year’s contestants are so dull that they’ve nothing to do except sleep, and Big Brother’s producers managed to so screw up this year’s edition by re-introducing Jade Goody et al, that all the potentially interesting people left. But I say they’ve done us a favour.
The other night I was flicking between E4 and E4+1 and exactly the same thing was on both channels. The same people sleeping in pretty much the same positions.
If that’s not art, I don’t know what is.
Disclaimer: I loathe and detest Big Brother – I’m attempting irony here. Much of what I’ve included above, I’ve learnt from talking to people and reading online. I certainly wouldn’t recommend people actually watch the regularly scheduled programming in primetime on C4 or E4. Instead, can I perhaps suggest learning Chinese on CCTV-9. Zai jian.