If we were having this discussion in Florence in 1480 I can imagine what Charles and Carl would be saying. Charles: "Paintings? We can do without 9/10ths of them. If I see another Madonna and Child..." Carl: "Botticelli? He's one of a kind. Van der Weyden? Don't care for him myself. Maybe those Netherlanders are keeping the best stuff for themselves, but that Entombment is over-rated. For every Botticelli there are dozens of Sano di Pietros. And all those studios are just turning out dross for the mass market." Sure, there's a lot of rubbish out there. But the peaks are fantastic - and I thought The Office was great. I'd include 24, Buffy, Six Feet Under and The West Wing too. It's the nature of golden ages that they're always in the past. But it's a shame when the reflected glory of the past blinds people to the greatness of the present. But you're right about the BBC. Most of the good stuff shown over here is imported from the US. --James James Greenstein --- "Carl Remick" wrote: >From: > >CB: "Great televisions shows ? We could do without 9/10ths of them >probably." > >JG: There's certainly room for improvement, but I think that we are in >a golden age of TV at the moment - The Sopranos, etc. But I do agree >with Lord Reith, former director general of the BBC - "Don't give the >people what they want, give them something better." That "etc." is misleading; The Sopranos is one-of-a-kind brilliant. Charles is right that the vast majority of all TV programming today is dreck -- probably even worse than the televised mind-rot of the 'fifties because there is so much of it. Worst of all, the US Public Broadcasting System has been defunded and hollowed out -- my local PBS affiliate devotes its Saturday evenings to broadcasting fare like reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show from 40 years ago. BTW, Lord Reith must be spinning turbine-like in his grave if The Office is at all representative of the BBC's current programming innovation. I tried watching this lauded series a couple of times and found it witless, not -- as claimed -- a satire of witlessness. Of course, most of what's shown here on BBC-America either is decades old or, if current, is god-awful home-makeover programming, so I don't know if the BBC is just saving its best stuff for UK viewership. But I would say that as "golden ages" go, TV today is mainly brass. Carl ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk