If I am championing a past, it’s a past of brilliant scenarios and scripting like Steptoe and Son. Even as a child, I realised this programme was something special. The writing had a tragic and desperate element above the laughs that is now compared with Beckett and Godot.
And beyond that, at about 9, I was also reading the Penguin screenplays of Quatermass
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... mostly dealing with the liquidation (in some cases literally) of humankind.
If you wish to compare Grange Hill to Dr. Who as one of the jewels in international crown in terms of marketing and overseas sales for the Beeb and a huge cash cow...well....er.... I’d just say no.
Subtle has gone out of the window. This new series is a tick box exercise in BBC programming - and I mean the word programming in the wider sense, as it’s designed to promote a cultural shift of opinion.
I said earlier I’d be fine with the series if the characters and scripts were good but apart from Victoria Wood, I’m getting Bubble in Space (and I’m wondering if Jane Horrocks would have nailed it better), a blatant steal from Predator and an almost historical reconstruction of the Rosa Parks bus journey that some think is a bit Quantum Leap. There’s very little originality here.
I maintain this is shoehorn operated by sledgehammer.