TV reviews

Just in case you've come here expecting to read interesting stuff about knitting, I offer a short explanation of why I might post a TV review on what is ostensibly a knitting blog*. There is a link, being the fact that the TV is more often than not ON, when I am knitting. I watch quite a lot of TV**, and I often find that I am sitting in-front of the TV as if to watch, but really all my attention is with the knitting***. These facts may or may not strike you as rather sad, depending on your opinions regarding TV, knitting, and the watching or not watching thereof. I say I am upholding a great british tradition as handed down to me by my dear departed mum and there's an end to it.

Anyway. Probably this is just another way for me to squeeze that last little bit of guilty pleasure out of my TV watching habit. But, in a small but important qualifier, I have actually studied scriptwriting, and even tried my hand, once or twice, at writing for TV. I've never had anything produced though, so I don't claim have the bottom line on what is or isn't great TV (or great knitting come to that). Every once in a while though, I feel sufficiently moved to have an opinion.****



* Bitofaknitter has mostly gone the way of most blogs - started up with great enthusiasm and the best of intentions*****, but before too long becoming a mostly forgotten weed-like scrap of data adrift in the ever expanding and limitless ocean of the ether-verse. In 2012 I wrote just one post. It's a pretty poor show by any standard. But, neglect aside, I'm fond of my blog. I've started others, and they really are mostly made up of what I call 'hole years', with not a single post to mark the passing. So I have decided simply that this is my blog. I'll post what I fancy when I fancy. You're welcome.

** I admit it, I watch quite a lot of TV. I feel guilty about it, and then immediately feel irritated that I feel guilty. But that's a whole other ball game/world of pain/opportunity-for-cultural-comment blog post.

***Actually, I haven't knitted anything for a good long while. The blog is titled 'BITofknitter' though. I rest my case.

****I was going to post a review about the latest BBC adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover, but I hesitated as I didn't really want my first review to be a hatchet job. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one who had doubts, so for the record here's my two-penneth-worth after all.

Top notch cast (though seriously, Richard Madden just wasn't a good choice for Mellors, bless him with his creamy entirely unblemished, practically luminous good looks. And a slapped wrist to whoever thought it a good idea for him to be the only mine worker to not have a black face). Top notch writer (but I suspect we won't be seeing any more period literary adaptations from the brilliant and talented Jed Mercurio anytime soon). And a top notch, as well as notoriously racy, literary source material. What a stroke of Sunday evening scheduling genius! A guaranteed goer (forgive the pun), what could possibly go wrong?

Pretty much everything as it turns out. Such a shame, as the beeb usually does this stuff better than anyone else. So how they managed to produce this rather clumsy, obvious, even trite, and at times precariously close to laughable - I cite Bolton's turn-on-a-penny change of heart - and decidedly rushed piece is a mystery (I admit I have no idea how things get produced - I expect that at some point there is no choice but to broadcast, even if they know they've made a bit of lemon). I think that the problem lies in the restricted ninety minute time frame, and the fact that Mercurio is a brilliant writer BUT that he's better doing high-stakes, cleverly plotted pace, rather than the slow-burn, un-doable double-bind that makes the original material so compelling.

*****This is for my writer friends. When I first started the blog, one of the intentions was to commit to, and develop, a proper and regular writing habit. This post, as it turns out, has actually been a rather drawn out way of avoiding getting back to the hard graft of writing my current (for 'current' please read 'yet to be abandoned') project. As a dear friend of mine often says #thewritinglife.******

****** Yes. I have a twitter account. Please refer to section *.