MovieChat Forums > The Seventies (2015) Discussion > Television Gets Real

Television Gets Real

posted 8 years ago by graham_mercer-1
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English viewer who enjoys American "recent" history.

Just watched first episode. Absolutely fascinated to see how American TV has influenced British TV, especially in Sports presentation. The development of cable and PPV through ESPN and HBO is fascinating. Absolute market leaders and the reason TV is as it is now. But...

To claim mini-series TV was US invention by citing "Novels for Television" were PBS creation - using I Claudius as an example!! I am pretty sure that was a BBC production.
Archie Bunker was actually a re-write of Till Death Us Do Part - so racial satire not exactly original. No mention of "gritty" police procedural's - The Sweeney was there first. But...

I cannot argue against this programme though. True "taboo" was addressed first in a very appropriate, if shocking (for the time definitely, but I suspect even now), which was unheard of - Roots and Holocaust were shown - even now to remake that in those terms would be a risk. To remake now has nearly total sympathy and understanding of the wrongs done - back then,though, a significant- if not majority of the - population probably still believed it was the right thing to do.This shows just a snapshot without judgement of political interests.

Overall a good start.

Looking forward to Nixon chapter.

"Every planet has a north"

[–] skeverriotgrrrl 8 years ago

I watched this particular episode last night, which was my first time, due to my OCD in finding & making my perfect Netflix 'watch list'.

I read this post and found your unique, English perspective quite fascinating. Thank you for writing this post; you've managed to do something most would not and that is to ponder the US's recent past and how the British people might receive our almost subliminal, usually idiotic and/or taboo television shows.

Personally, I've always found British TV superiorly smarter and more quick-witted.