Why, it's just like life, but with all the intelligence sucked from it

[perlmonger]

<rhetoric>Why is it that television documentaries have got unwatchably bad?</rhetoric>

ramtops and I just tried watching Pagans on C4; we gritted our teeth and lasted to the first adbreak, but no more: I could feel brain cells leaking out of my ears by that point.

It was just the usual: content to filler ratio of 1:20 at best, ludicrous camera work and effects, and commentary apparantly aimed at a mental age exceeded by most 4-year-olds I have known. Bah. This could have been interesting and informative; it could have actually helped viewers lacking other sources to learn a bit of their Pagan heritage and how that relates to people re-dis-covering a connection with their context of Being today, but no... let's make it whizzy and brain-dead instead.

We switched to UKTV History, reshowing a fascinating Horizon from 2000 on the Nasca[1] people of what's now Peru; even as recently as that, there were documentaries that didn't patronise or pretend that they knew all the answers. Still quite superficial, of course, but intelligent and presuming at least some interest and intelligence in the viewer.

Sigh...

[1] I couldn't stop my head hearing "Nasca" as "NASCAR"; perhaps those lines across the pueblo were really stock car tracks: spirals instead of the roundie-round :)

Comments

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Did they have the twangy sound effects and the Dead Can Dance background music? I forgot it was on to be honest.

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

aca heard it as NASCAR, too.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I got the one interesting idea from Pagans (and you missed the pointy gold wizard's hat, which was three feet high, and amazing ...) but yes, it's driving me nuts as well.

I believe I know that Horizon programme on Nasca, which I've seen a couple of times, and thought highly enjoyable.

I couldn't stop my head hearing "Nasca" as "NASCAR"; perhaps those lines across the pueblo were really stock car tracks: spirals instead of the roundie-round

And von Daniken said ...?