Here’s a slightly enlarged piece I wrote back in 2015 or so, but never got around to finishing. So I’ve had a bit more of a bash at it, but still feel it makes the grade as part of my Stuck in Draft series.

In David Lodge’s Changing Places, the English faculty play a game called Humiliation. Basically, they have to name classic of English literature that they’ve not themselves actually read. The winner is the person who’s not read the biggest acknowledged classic.

This isn’t quite the same for me since I’m not teaching “contemporary television” or whatever such a course might be called. But I’ll admit that there are a lot of shows that I’ve not seen which others will be shocked/disgusted/surprised/pitiful that I’ve not seen. Or perhaps I’ve only watched an episode or so, but given up far too early.

Here’s some of the list, concentrating for the most part on drama, and excluding soaps (never seen an episode of Coronation Street) or reality shows (have never watched Gogglebox, for example):

• Breaking Bad
• Futurama
• Mad Men
• The Good Wife
• The Crown
• Peaky Blinders
• Wolf Hall
• Big Little Lies
• The Leftovers
• Catastrophe
• Orange is the New Black
• Modern Family
• Last Tango in Halifax
• Boardwalk Empire
• Deadwood
• Queer as Folk

Some of these I will get around to, and many I won’t. It’s not a complete list, and just because something’s not on it, it doesn’t mean that I’ve seen all of it. For example, I bailed on The Sopranos before it ended, I got lost with Lost, and I’ve never seen the final season of The West Wing.

At least two of those series are sitting with every episode on my Sky+, while for two others I have DVDs or Bluray boxsets to attack at some point.

But there’s so much decent TV now, let alone all the rubbish TV we would put up with in between the good stuff!