Time Team, Channel 4's (ahem) groundbreaking archaeology programme, ran for 20 years from 1994. At its best it was like a nonfiction version of Detectorists.
So Time Team's cancellation rivals the death of David Bowie as the event after which everything started going wrong.
This special programme celebrates those 20 years.
I've been watching old episodes of Time Team on YouTube recently and have noticed one way in which it changed over the years. In its final year or two, the programme included a montage of the best bits to come in that episode to dissuade people from changing channel.
That's life in a multimedia, multichannel world, but as my mother's second husband used to say, it was like unwrapping your presents before Christmas.
"Next week" previews make me feel like an eight year old watching Children's Film Foundation flicks on a Saturday morning, already aware that I shouldn't build my hopes too highly. Are viewers so stupid that they can't judge whether to watch the next episode, or is it that the programme producers are stupid?
ReplyDeleteIf you compare the current Chess Masters:The Endgame with Master Game years ago, the level of dumbing down is striking. Problem is, once someone starts doing it, everyone thinks they have to follow suit
ReplyDeleteI lasted about a minute with that programme and then went online and played a game myself. So in a way it had the effect it wanted.
DeleteHow about at the end of a programme install a comment that instills a thought of mystery to encourage you to tune in next time?
ReplyDeletePossibly the moment when it changed was the introduction of the smartphone. On the one hand people used it to document crimes. On the other it enabled the filter-bubble and many channel media. Why engage with reality when you can live in an echo chamber? No pesky facts.
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