Or is it just that nobody wants to see features about serial killer neighbours and how to spot them?

Like many people, I used to have a time for watching TV, and I found more and more that I was putting up with rubbish just because it was my 'relaxing time' and that was my telly time. Even with catch up as an option I was just making do with the least worst programme. So I suddenly just stopped. Now I read more books, listen to more music, and my mind is free of the kind of crap I used to endure out of habit.

One problem with TV is that it's gone, in terms of hype, from one extreme to another in my lifetime. You used to get great TV that was hardly acknowledged by newspaper critics etc. Now you get just about any old run of the mill stuff hyped remorselessly like it's an instant classic.

Once you stop you really see how absurd it all is. TV takes itself SO seriously these days. It's partly down to people entering the industry very young and working in it non-stop - they have zero perspective.

I can't remember any series I followed properly on TV.

I am going through Minder at the moment. During the original run of the series I was in USA so it was The Equalizer for me.

I tried to reboot series of The Equalizer and found it be racist twaddle. Hollywood have to bring race in to every thing these days or some gay agenda. The gay guys I know hate how media protray them to be.

My friends would not be seen at any LGBT parade, nor do they wear chaps and open shirts, nor do they have lisps or high pitch voices and nor do sleep around like sluts.

They look like bar-room brawlers and underground fighters and have been faithful to their boyfriends for years, nor do they feel like victims.


Dukes of Hazzard has been banned for years on US TV and heard the UK has followed suit.


I spend more time watching documentaries on Rumble about 'conspiracies' which they might as well be called spoilers. I am still waiting to be proven wrong !

ITV and Channel 4/5 seems to be nothing sex and Gen Z bollocks. BBC loves to preach to the choir.

TV dead? This is the wrong question. The question is why so many of us live like we are dead, soaking up the banality this medium offers in droves.

I think TV has it's place in a rich and balanced life.

There are wonderful dramas, documentaries, arts, science and nature shows. Some great films are still made. Dickens would probably work now writing amazing serial TV shows like "The Wire". The "problem" is not the medium; it is our use of it which should be scrutinised.

Millions "plug" themselves into the box watching the easiest crap out there; filling all their spare time with - nothing.

This is a waste of life: brain rot. It is not, though, a binary argument. An evening is well spent with variously, music, a book and watching a quality programme on TV. Or just thoughtful silence. Pick your doses: it is important what you imbibe. Entertainment is fine, but experience it well-done. And don't mistake entertainment for vacuous cheap manipulation: singing "talent" contests or "pick the dick" dating shows.

However we are in control, not the TV. If we waste our life it is down to us. We can equally waste a life reading endless crap, cheap "thrillers" (and convince ourselves we are something noble called a "reader") or arguing with people on Twitter.

The wise use the plethora of media for their own enrichment; they are not enslaved to it.

Now I shall alight from my soap box because I wish to watch recordings of "Come Dine With Me" into the early hours...

I agree WYOT - after last night's series finale of This Is Going To Hurt - TV can be amazing! Mind you I'm biased. Ben Whishaw with no clothes on will always get me smiling.

Wyot wrote:
TV dead? This is the wrong question. The question is why so many of us live like we are dead, soaking up the banality this medium offers in droves.

I think TV has it's place in a rich and balanced life.

There are wonderful dramas, documentaries, arts, science and nature shows. Some great films are still made. Dickens would probably work now writing amazing serial TV shows like "The Wire". The "problem" is not the medium; it is our use of it which should be scrutinised.

Millions "plug" themselves into the box watching the easiest crap out there; filling all their spare time with - nothing.

This is a waste of life: brain rot. It is not, though, a binary argument. An evening is well spent with variously, music, a book and watching a quality programme on TV. Or just thoughtful silence. Pick your doses: it is important what you imbibe. Entertainment is fine, but experience it well-done. And don't mistake entertainment for vacuous cheap manipulation: singing "talent" contests or "pick the dick" dating shows.

However we are in control, not the TV. If we waste our life it is down to us. We can equally waste a life reading endless crap, cheap "thrillers" (and convince ourselves we are something noble called a "reader") or arguing with people on Twitter.

The wise use the plethora of media for their own enrichment; they are not enslaved to it.

Now I shall alight from my soap box because I wish to watch recordings of "Come Dine With Me" into the early hours...

When I flick through the TV guide out of curiosity. All I see is repeats and game shows.