I love The Thick Of It, and I’ve just been watching tonight’s new hour long episode in which we discover which “nutter” is going to stand forward for leadership of the party. Cracking swearing as ever.
But can someone tell me why we had to have twenty minutes of it – the opposition’s point of view – hidden underneath the red button? The announcer, on a BBC Four programme, said that “those of us watching on digital television” could press the red button at the end for an extra bit. I suppose that in an age of DVD extras and deleted scenes, this is somehow a good thing. But BBC Four is only a digital channel, so there were surely no viewers that couldn’t press red, aside from perhaps those watching on analogue cable, and anyway, why couldn’t they just have edited in the opposition’s point of view and made the thing last one hour and twenty minutes?
I guess we all know what DVD extras are coming when this two parter’s released.
And one final thing: if we do have to have continuations after the end of a programme, please allow the slow digiboxes to get us across to the right interactive channel before the action all starts. I was pretty quick on the keypad, and still missed the first couple of lines.
Anyway, the show’s fabulous, and if you missed it tonight, catch it on one many future opportunities that BBC Four (and BBC Two) are giving us.