This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/04/tv-review-surviving-progress
The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| TV review: Diamond Jubilee and Surviving Progress | TV review: Diamond Jubilee and Surviving Progress |
| (10 days later) | |
| There are days when I can only conclude that the popular TV channels have decided to throw in the towel. With BBC1 clearing its evening schedules for the Diamond Jubilee Concert from Buckingham Palace, the other channels all but gave up the ghost. ITV1 chucked in half an hour of Rita's wedding in Coronation Street but then settled for a James Bond film everyone has seen at least twice before; Channel 4 repeated a Come Dine With Me Jubilee Special barely a week after its first transmission, before serving up a tired helping of Gok Cooks Chinese and the Secret Millionaire; BBC2 gave us UK wildlife's tribute to the Queen in a Springwatch retrospective, a Ewan McGregor repeat of The Battle of Britain and yet another showing of The Terminator, which everyone must have seen at least a dozen times by now. In the vague hope of finding something that hadn't been pre-cooked, I even watched half an hour of Breakfast (BBC1), only to find that the main items were interviews with the winners of The Voice and The Apprentice. | There are days when I can only conclude that the popular TV channels have decided to throw in the towel. With BBC1 clearing its evening schedules for the Diamond Jubilee Concert from Buckingham Palace, the other channels all but gave up the ghost. ITV1 chucked in half an hour of Rita's wedding in Coronation Street but then settled for a James Bond film everyone has seen at least twice before; Channel 4 repeated a Come Dine With Me Jubilee Special barely a week after its first transmission, before serving up a tired helping of Gok Cooks Chinese and the Secret Millionaire; BBC2 gave us UK wildlife's tribute to the Queen in a Springwatch retrospective, a Ewan McGregor repeat of The Battle of Britain and yet another showing of The Terminator, which everyone must have seen at least a dozen times by now. In the vague hope of finding something that hadn't been pre-cooked, I even watched half an hour of Breakfast (BBC1), only to find that the main items were interviews with the winners of The Voice and The Apprentice. |
| I guess, then, that most of the country's viewers must have done their royal duty and rocked out to Elton, Cliff, Macca, Kylie, Robbie and Gary playing medleys of their greatest hits for three and a half hours. I wasn't one of them, I'm afraid; I'm sure the concert will have been very jolly but I was all jubileed out after watching the Thames pageant on television the day before. | I guess, then, that most of the country's viewers must have done their royal duty and rocked out to Elton, Cliff, Macca, Kylie, Robbie and Gary playing medleys of their greatest hits for three and a half hours. I wasn't one of them, I'm afraid; I'm sure the concert will have been very jolly but I was all jubileed out after watching the Thames pageant on television the day before. |
| For about an hour or so, it had been quite entertaining to see the boats pass by, but then one began to look much the same as any other and I found myself wondering if it was ever going to end. In this the commentary didn't help, as it was clear the BBC team had run out of anything interesting to say within half an hour and were left to fill space by prefacing every sentence with, 'It may be teeming with rain but nothing can spoil the day.' And thereby left this viewer feeling that they meant precisely the opposite. | For about an hour or so, it had been quite entertaining to see the boats pass by, but then one began to look much the same as any other and I found myself wondering if it was ever going to end. In this the commentary didn't help, as it was clear the BBC team had run out of anything interesting to say within half an hour and were left to fill space by prefacing every sentence with, 'It may be teeming with rain but nothing can spoil the day.' And thereby left this viewer feeling that they meant precisely the opposite. |
| Still, there were a couple of highlights, though they don't seem to have got much attention elsewhere. The first was the glimpse of the KPMG boat with the slogan "Cutting Through Complexity" down its side: so many accountants, so much money and yet no brains to see there are two ways of interpreting that message. And then there were Sandi Toksvig, Griff Rhys Jones, Maureen Lipman and Omid Djalili looking utterly miserable and hiding inside the cabin of their launch while being forced to say what a fantastic time they were having. | Still, there were a couple of highlights, though they don't seem to have got much attention elsewhere. The first was the glimpse of the KPMG boat with the slogan "Cutting Through Complexity" down its side: so many accountants, so much money and yet no brains to see there are two ways of interpreting that message. And then there were Sandi Toksvig, Griff Rhys Jones, Maureen Lipman and Omid Djalili looking utterly miserable and hiding inside the cabin of their launch while being forced to say what a fantastic time they were having. |
| They all might just have been watching a preview of the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary Surviving Progress (BBC4), which never quite delivered all that it promised. Based on Ronald's Wright 2004 book, A Short History of Progress, the film started well by challenging the assumption that all progress is necessarily good and that relying on technology to solve some of the problems that technology has created is a form of madness. There is no inherent bias towards self-correction within technology. | They all might just have been watching a preview of the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary Surviving Progress (BBC4), which never quite delivered all that it promised. Based on Ronald's Wright 2004 book, A Short History of Progress, the film started well by challenging the assumption that all progress is necessarily good and that relying on technology to solve some of the problems that technology has created is a form of madness. There is no inherent bias towards self-correction within technology. |
| Neither is there in the markets and Surviving Progress was equally good on explaining why economics is less a science and more a chalkboard of arbitrary equations devised to underpin a set of doubtful values. As the Canadian film-makers, Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, went on to explain the only end to debt is to wipe it out and start again, as several ancient civilisations did in the past. Only there's no sign of that happening now and even organisations such as the IMF, that are supposed to be the world's face of benign banking, are predicated on getting indebted countries to hand over their natural resources to the richer nations. They therefore become ever more indebted – apart from a small elite oligarchy who are allowed to cream off their 10% for their compliance. | Neither is there in the markets and Surviving Progress was equally good on explaining why economics is less a science and more a chalkboard of arbitrary equations devised to underpin a set of doubtful values. As the Canadian film-makers, Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, went on to explain the only end to debt is to wipe it out and start again, as several ancient civilisations did in the past. Only there's no sign of that happening now and even organisations such as the IMF, that are supposed to be the world's face of benign banking, are predicated on getting indebted countries to hand over their natural resources to the richer nations. They therefore become ever more indebted – apart from a small elite oligarchy who are allowed to cream off their 10% for their compliance. |
| Where the film failed was in its ending. The only possible conclusion to everything that had come before was that we are heading for Armageddon. The rich countries aren't going to back down; we're not going to stop exploiting the world's resources; and we're not going to reduce the world's population. But the film couldn't handle finishing on such a downer and so iInstead, we were offered a few platitudes, such as moving from consumption to non-consumption. And how were we going to get there? Through the new planetary brain of the internet. Given that most of the world's internet traffic is either porn or websites trying to sell you stuff you can't afford, I wouldn't hold your breath. | Where the film failed was in its ending. The only possible conclusion to everything that had come before was that we are heading for Armageddon. The rich countries aren't going to back down; we're not going to stop exploiting the world's resources; and we're not going to reduce the world's population. But the film couldn't handle finishing on such a downer and so iInstead, we were offered a few platitudes, such as moving from consumption to non-consumption. And how were we going to get there? Through the new planetary brain of the internet. Given that most of the world's internet traffic is either porn or websites trying to sell you stuff you can't afford, I wouldn't hold your breath. |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. | Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Enter your email address to subscribe. | Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Enter your email address to subscribe. |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |