Steve Parker argues that filmmakers and audiences are being let down by television schedulers who peddle the same pseudo-dramas every night instead of investing in new ideas.

Article first published: Winter 2003

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you share our passion for the moving image. I use the phrase ‘moving image’ rather than ‘cinema’ because I want to talk about television – a medium capable of creating comedy that is equally the match of cinema, and drama that can be as powerful and moving as cinematic drama. Indeed, in the UK, high quality drama has been one of the great cultural successes of TV. Also, because it is perfectly suited to episodic viewing, television can add a dimension where cinema is lacking – the long-running quality drama series.

Over the decades, TV has produced some true masterpieces. I was reminded of this recently when I rewatched on DVD the landmark British TV drama, Our Friends In The North, first aired in 1995 and covering 30 years in the lives of four friends, dealing intimately with their personal relationships, but also charting the rise of corruption in public life over the period. With 160 speaking parts, 3000 extras and a 40-week shooting schedule, such ambitious projects are understandably few and far between, but the same need not apply to the less ambitious one-off play format – not only a fantastic opportunity for aspiring writers and filmmakers to cut their teeth, but also the chance for audiences to be exposed to edgy and original ideas as a regular part of the schedule.

Gems such as Cathy Come Home, Boys From the Blackstuff, most of Jack Rosenthal’s output, etc were offspring of the UK’s one-time commitment to the format. They were generally cheap compared with feature films, but they were often gritty and challenging and darkly humorous. And although they still exist – the recent Larkin – Love Again, for instance, and The Gathering Storm – sightings are now exceptionally rare and usually accompanied by a great fanfare. Is this due to lack of overall budget? Not entirely. More TV stations and declining ad revenue may certainly have an effect, but television is still packed with drama (or ‘pseudo drama’). No, the main reason is that schedulers have got lazy. Imagine you’re involved in scheduling ITV1 in the UK. Why would you bother to constantly search for successors to Cracker when you can fill three days of your schedule with Emmerdale, Coronation Street and The Bill and be done with it. These stale old formats attract high numbers of regular addicted viewers, many of whom have rarely experienced better from TV drama, but they deliver consistent, easily profilable audiences for advertisers, so why rock the boat?

Drama in crisis

The problem with TV schedulers is that they don’t know when to hit the stop button. There were two six-episode series of Fawlty Towers, each episode a perfectly crafted, almost flawless 25-odd minutes of comedy. But would it have survived a third series – or a fourth? Almost certainly not. Anyone who has followed Friends is aware of the dire consequences of following this road – three half-decent series followed by a slow depressing decline into uninspired farce. The same is true of drama. If Cracker were to have evolved into a twice-weekly, full-year-round series, it would surely have declined into a tired soap populated by teenage detectives wondering if their arses look big in these uniforms and shagging at every opportunity. Oh, or is that the The Bill? Switch on Eastenders and it’s all just blah-blah-blah. You’ve shouted at her before; you threatened to kill him last week. Didn’t you have a secret affair with him last year?

The 4-DVD Our Friends in the North is not cheap, but if you’re a fan of excellent drama, the purchase is well worth it. On the inside sleeve, writer Peter Flannery declaims with typical eloquence on the decline of the British drama serial. “It is now all but eclipsed by the series form – by the long-runners and soaps; drama that refuses to end. It’s like watching loads of talented writers, actors, producers and TV executives who appear to have contracted Alzheimer’s and forgotten that they’ve already said and done this. To be useful to an audience, a story has to end. It’s the basic duty of a story.”

The UK is in danger of having more NHS hospital dramas than NHS hospitals. And as for pedestrian murder mysteries, pathology soaps and detective series – if all the people murdered in soaps and melodramas in the UK last year had actually been the victims of murder, Michael Moore would be making another Bowling for Columbine about the UK.

At frequent intervals, TV commissioners and producers should ask themselves, “is there anything of use or interest we can yet say with this situation and these characters?” If the answer is no (which it clearly is with most of their long-runners), they should bang the highlights on a DVD and move on.

Steve Parker Steve Parker is editor of the Reel Show. His degree course in linguistics and ergonomics was completely wasted on him. He stood for election for the position of President of the Students Union (and won) so that he could spend a year organizing parties and drinking cheap alcohol. He became a journalist while at university and has been a slacker ever since.