Ganges
I hardly ever watch television programmes on the night they're shown: I always watch everything recorded, sometimes weeks later. So now, only a few weeks after it was on, I can tell you that I hate bloody wallpaper television like the programme Ganges which I just watched tonight.
They spent about four squillion quid sending some very clever cameramen to get a lot of wonderful footage of the source of the Ganges up in the Himalayas, and lots of wildlife, and the people of the region - - and it all looked very pretty. And that's all there was to it, really, because it had a commentary of such mind-boggling banality that it sucked any information out of your brain rather than putting any in.
We watched for ten minutes in surprised silence at the glory of the pictures and the dullness of the words. It didn't help that the woman who narrated it had a voice of exquisitely soporific blandness, and yet she tried to LOAD everything with MEANING by stressing RANDOM words to no PURPOSE and speaking QUIETLY in the hope of sounding MEANINGFUL. The whole thing was souped over by mushy music.
After ten minutes Emily remarked evenly, "Whoever wrote this script should be shot. And so should the woman reading it." The woman's name, I note, did not appear in the credits.
After twelve minutes I thought, privately, that shooting was too kind. Disembowelling with a spoon was my punishment of choice.
Everything was given equal weight and none of it seemed to be about anything much. "snow leopard - - vultures - - pilgrims - - Lady of the Mountains - - pilgrims - - gods - - naked couple copulating in a china shop - - sunsets - - splashing water - - pilgrims - - "
Except I lied about the naked couple and the china shop. No, nothing so interesting. This was television from which you learned nothing new - it all blended into a lot of pretty images one after the other, like watching chocolate boxes pass before the eyes. I feel sorry for the cameramen - they did a fine job and it was all ruined by everything that happened after they'd gone home. What a waste.
They spent about four squillion quid sending some very clever cameramen to get a lot of wonderful footage of the source of the Ganges up in the Himalayas, and lots of wildlife, and the people of the region - - and it all looked very pretty. And that's all there was to it, really, because it had a commentary of such mind-boggling banality that it sucked any information out of your brain rather than putting any in.
We watched for ten minutes in surprised silence at the glory of the pictures and the dullness of the words. It didn't help that the woman who narrated it had a voice of exquisitely soporific blandness, and yet she tried to LOAD everything with MEANING by stressing RANDOM words to no PURPOSE and speaking QUIETLY in the hope of sounding MEANINGFUL. The whole thing was souped over by mushy music.
After ten minutes Emily remarked evenly, "Whoever wrote this script should be shot. And so should the woman reading it." The woman's name, I note, did not appear in the credits.
After twelve minutes I thought, privately, that shooting was too kind. Disembowelling with a spoon was my punishment of choice.
Everything was given equal weight and none of it seemed to be about anything much. "snow leopard - - vultures - - pilgrims - - Lady of the Mountains - - pilgrims - - gods - - naked couple copulating in a china shop - - sunsets - - splashing water - - pilgrims - - "
Except I lied about the naked couple and the china shop. No, nothing so interesting. This was television from which you learned nothing new - it all blended into a lot of pretty images one after the other, like watching chocolate boxes pass before the eyes. I feel sorry for the cameramen - they did a fine job and it was all ruined by everything that happened after they'd gone home. What a waste.
posted by Daphne at 11:26 pm
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