The National TV Awards highlight how poor British TV is

I just wanted to share my thoughts on the painfully bad nominations for the National TV Awards and hear some of your thoughts as well.

The Best Comedy category is by far the worst with all nominees in the final round being equally bad: Derek, Miranda, Mrs Brown's Boys, The Big Bang Theory (although big bang gets some credit for being bearable in it's first few series). I cannot believe this is what the british public watch..

Best Drama Performance is Downton Abbey's Maggie Smith, Miranda Hart for Call the Midwife, Doc Martin's Martin Clunes and recently departed Doctor Who star, Matt Smith. If this is the best of the best in british drama then we are in real trouble.

Sunday night drivel Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey dominate the nominations as they also appear in theBest Drama up against Doctor Who and Broadchurch.

I went on the site to vote for the only real talent in the nominations:

Idris Elba for Luther in Best Detective who was up against Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Coleman, and David Tennant. It was a tough choice but I decided on Elba because I enjoyed Luther more than Broadchurch (sorry David!) and the new series of Sherlock is poor.

Obviously I voted for Broadcurch in Best Drama as it was an amazing show.

The rest of the categories are filled mostly with soaps, talk shows, and talent shows- none of which I am going to talk about (don't watch any of them besides Graham Norton on occasion so cant really comment). You can see the full list of final round nominations here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25627542

It's a good thing I have Sky Atlantic and Netflix.

Reply 1

emski

you are the reason why we should have negative voting for comments and threads...

Reply 2

Solivagant

Derek for best comedy?

That was APPALLING!

Reply 3

VladThe1mpaler

Original post by emski

you are the reason why we should have negative voting for comments and threads...

Care to explain why you disagree with me? Are you of such low intelligence that you find Mrs Brown's Boys amusing?

Reply 4

ThatPerson

I watch none of the shows you listed apart from Sherlock, and it hasn't been poor this year. This series has been very good so far. Don't be so sanctimonious as to assume your opinion is the only correct one.

Reply 5

VladThe1mpaler

Original post by ThatPerson

I never said it was, this thread is entirely my opinion. But instead of people commenting things just saying "would neg rep" etc. they should give their opinions as it adds nothing to discussion.

Episode 2 of sherlock was poor, it was like a bad sitcom. It's not a terrible series but it isnt as good as the previous two.

Reply 6

russellsteapot

TV Awards are typically awful. Music awards are the same. They generally feature the inoffensive generic junk that sits there in prime time slots and gets watched despite not much much of anything, but it's on BBC1/ITV in the evening, and the 'stars' are on talk shows/Children in Need so people watch it. The traditional market who don't really want challenging or thoughtful TV, just something to watch because they happen to be sat in the living room all night. If you put something like The Tunnel (which I thought was excellent) on a Saturday evening on BBC1 instead of the dancing ****, it wouldn't go down well because it isn't generic and predictable enough, doesn't have 'celebrities' in it and has a rather unpleasant plot for anyone sat with the kids.

I don't think awards ever show the best of anything (although 'best' is subjective, of course). They just show the most acceptable to mass audiences, which tends to be mindless drudge. It's probably more a reflection on British TV viewers than the quality of British TV itself.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 7

VladThe1mpaler

Original post by russellsteapot

British TV viewers than the quality of British TV itself.

I think you are right. There are several good programmes that were on last year that i had completely forgotten about. Things like The Tunnel, Utopia, Southcliffe, Peaky Blinders, The Fall, In the Flesh, Black Mirror. All of which should have been nominated.

I guess its not surprising that these awards are filled with rubbish when the majority of the British public didn't enjoy Breaking Bad when it first came on TV.

Reply 8

Mackay

- None of the comedies are funny.
- JEREMY KYLE is up for an award?
- There's a daytime TV award? Ffs.
- JEREMY KYLE is up for an award?
- Who cares about soaps?
- JEREMY KYLE is up for an award?

Reply 9

whyumadtho

Dramas are far too short in this country (and take too long to make).

Reply 10

emski

Original post by VladThe1mpaler

Care to explain why you disagree with me? Are you of such low intelligence that you find Mrs Brown's Boys amusing?

First of all I'm at uni and did maths and physics a levels so no I'm not of low intelligence. Secondly I can recognise good acting performances whether that be Broadchurch detectives or Haley in coronation street with a topic that has affected my family.

Reply 11

xForeverx

Original post by VladThe1mpaler

Nah, that's a show made for people who think they're incredibly intelligent for pointing out the flaws in our technologically-advanced society. Any old idiot could do that. :rolleyes:

Reply 12

Genocidal

I largely agree with you, but this is why TV awards and music awards don't have that much exposure. The majority couldn't care less, whereas the Oscars get practically every reporter in the world descending on the red carpet.

I think the problem with TV these days is it doesn't target any kind of niche. It's there to appeal to a very general audience who will simply watch it because it happens to be on.

Reply 13

Prandtl

I've only watched Broadchurch and Black Mirror of the programmes mentioned on this thread. So it's been a decent year I guess. I've not seen Call the Midwife, Doc Martin, Miranda, Mrs Browns Boys, Derek as I don't reckon I'd enjoy them. But they seem to get good viewing figures and get recommissioned so they'll be doing something right.