The new series of Doctor Who: Fleeing from format?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

http://www.shadowlocked.com/201211152800/features/the-new-series-of-doctor-who-fleeing-from-format.html

<<The New Series has given itself two basic tasks. One, to put back and keep
on our screens a programme by the name of Doctor Who that maintains
substantial visible continuity with the classic series in many ways. Two,
and this is where conflicting elements start to come in, to seek to define
this resurrected programme against many aspects of the classic series, even
fundamental aspects in pursuit of task one.>>

Reading this essay was an exercise in speed reading. I was too young and
never invested much in Classic Who, and the new series contains so many
dreadfuls I don't want my brain to regurgitate anything lurking around my
subconscious any more than necessary. What I did pick out, and tend to agree
with, is new Who is trying to please too many people, and in doing so,
falling short on delivering.

I was reflecting, earlier, on the fact my media input is almost exclusively
cherrypicked American content. The only UK show I've watched recently,
Hunted, is so self-consciously serious, with a subtext of snobbery and
squalor that caused Alistair Cooke to leave the UK, it's painful to watch.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:k86hem$ii4$1...@dont-email.me...

The main problem with British TV drama is that most of it is created by
writers or producers who think the actors are performing in stage plays, and
in fact if you go back to stuff up to the 80s and 90s so do the actors. They
don't have any idea that TV is a dynamic medium.

Unfortunately for your argument modern Doctor Who, Merlin and Primeval are
just about the only programmes that are trying to buck the system and
produce dynamic shows more like those from the US which are based on comic
books rather than Victorian stage plays (except for the US which are in fact
based on the style of Victorian stage place which no one knows about here,
because they're rubbish). On the other hand Hunted is probably a good
example of what is wrong with the system. Think I might have episode one
recorded. Couldn't bring myself to watch it.

The other problem is the lack of a decent budget. If they BBC had a clue
they would realise that funding popular shows like Doctor Who and Merlin for
runs of 26 episodes per season (and not commissioning 'stage plays' to fill
the gap) is much much more economical since you can reuse the same actors,
sets, costumes, and lactations. Lew Grade is just about the only British
produced that managed to see that.

> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
news:QLmdnZ8Rxp_SODrN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> The main problem with British TV drama is that most of it is created by
> writers or producers who think the actors are performing in stage plays,
> and in fact if you go back to stuff up to the 80s and 90s so do the
> actors. They don't have any idea that TV is a dynamic medium.
>
> Unfortunately for your argument modern Doctor Who, Merlin and Primeval are
> just about the only programmes that are trying to buck the system and
> produce dynamic shows more like those from the US which are based on comic
> books rather than Victorian stage plays (except for the US which are in
> fact based on the style of Victorian stage place which no one knows about
> here, because they're rubbish). On the other hand Hunted is probably a
> good example of what is wrong with the system. Think I might have episode
> one recorded. Couldn't bring myself to watch it.
>
> The other problem is the lack of a decent budget. If they BBC had a clue
> they would realise that funding popular shows like Doctor Who and Merlin
> for runs of 26 episodes per season (and not commissioning 'stage plays' to
> fill the gap) is much much more economical since you can reuse the same
> actors, sets, costumes, and lactations. Lew Grade is just about the only
> British produced that managed to see that.

Yes, to all of that.

The establishment hated Lew Grade (and Freddie Laker). They did everything
the could to destroy them and, largely, succeeded. Demand for better and
different is there not that you'd know from the media.

I have a critical meeting coming up this week. *sigh* I won't discuss
details but it's a similar old boys network running things, dated
stereotypes, and refusal to allocate necessary funds. Unless there's a
miracle or I get very, very lucky I expect to be fucked over pretty hard
because, well, some people don't get it. They lack that sense of dynamism,
or whatever it is, and kill vitality and energy stone dead.

Anyone with money (or who is a proven bankable asset) can finance their own
project, or leaves for America, Asia, or Australia.

Abandon ship. Every man (and woman) for themselves.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

In article <k88a5t$4gv$1...@dont-email.me>,

>miracle or I get very, very lucky I expect to be f*d over pretty hard

>because, well, some people don't get it. They lack that sense of dynamism,
>or whatever it is, and kill vitality and energy stone dead.
>
>Anyone with money (or who is a proven bankable asset) can finance their own
>project, or leaves for America, Asia, or Australia.
>
>Abandon ship. Every man (and woman) for themselves.
>
>--
>Charles E. Hardwidge
>

Michael Grade for himslef and then there is Jonathan Powell!
--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013

[FishFood]

On the point of Brit TV writing like stage plays, i would say it does go
back to budget, eg how many location can you afford in that 40 min slot.

Today's 'green screen' tech, on the face of it, should allow many more
interesting ways to tell a story, trouble is it is so labour intensive
and costly.

Then there's the core question, what is entertainment for?

There use to be a stronger sense of purpose for drama, there was a
sense of drama as communication, education and stimulation. One
wonders if indoctrination and intellectual stagnation isn't now the
media's resendetra. Unchallenging understimulating fodder. Safe
escapes to keep the wheels of production in motion and smug about
itself. Is this still drama?

Drama when its stimulating, is about who we are, its about what we need
dispite ourselves, whether we see it now as such, or seek it out in the
future. Its about that potential in the human psyche for better or
worst, which will always need to be re-educated. We forearm ourselves,
forewarn ourselves, with our dramas.

Like a few of you here, i grew up on 3 channels. Beebs 1 & 2, itv.
That was it up until the 80's. Then you had c4 and c5, and then the
explosion of satalite/cable channels.

With only 3 channels to choose from we were exposed to gamut of ideas
and influences. Back then day time tv comprised of programs for
schools, which in its own way must have acted to civilised the harsher
elements of society. Late night tv had open university programs, again
exposing you in a benign way to ideas which hinted, in its own way, at
the rational order of things.

Our dramaa can comedies ran parallel to our debates, high and low brow
with a fair amount of course humour thrown in, [carry on's no
withstanding]. It was the mix, this wide selection from a few channels
which entertained and educated. These days there is so much to choose
from, that we now select our own entertainment, and in that way cease
to be entertained. We can now avoid what's good for us and never know
it.

One way pass this habit of seeking what we already know, is simply to
settle on a given channel on for an extended period of time and in
that way be surprised by the unexpected, but i digress.


But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

Nikita is a show that manages to put a story into 40 minutes without looking
like a stage play. I was actually quite impressed with the last episode
which threw in an inventive twist. In comparison Hunted is a wall of static.

In simple terms entertainment is about reveals, delight, and pacing. Exactly
how you mix things up obviously depends but I just find UK TV does nothing
for me.

Under pressure from the US and audiences beginning to be more vocal about US
shows being better the BBC ramped things up. Unfortunately, people often
mistake ramping things up for change (in the same way they regard "cutting
costs" as saving money).

I do think you make a good point about "choice" and, given the drop in
quality of current affairs and documentaries due to shrinking budgets, how
the pot of available money in the economy is spent on entertainment. It's
just a fact the US is a bigger (and more uniform) economy so they will
always have bigger budgets and more choice. This is why, to some degree, the
UK may have specialised in less and less and been driven to make more
collaborative deals. However, this doesn't seem to be working very well and
is coming off the rails. So, again, we're back to change.

Lew Grade, like Hitchcock, got entertainment. Post-war American movies did
very well in the UK while even today some people still sneer at US
entertainment. Yet, where has this sneering got anyone? Where have all the
dreary kitchen sink dramas that win obscure awards got anyone? The most
exportable Japanese directors also get entertainment. So what is it that Lew
Grade. Hitchcock, Kurosawa (and others) get? I have my ideas but I'll leave
the question open for others to answer.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

I'll keep an eye open for Nikita, although i've had my fill of
entertainments for spooks, and the particular psyche it appeals to.

Having seen a few of Kurosawa's works, i would say he bridged that
gulf between cultures by revealing how alike we are. Great stories
for people who wanted to know what was on the other side, or what
was going on in the mind of the other. pathos and humour.

I'm tempted to ask about Canadian TV as one of the few other english
speaking countries. Austrilia we already have an incline of. ;)

If only we were brave enough to create for the niech. Alternative
drama, the way we had alternative humour. Instead the market demands
as we chase the biggest numbers. Which apparently means serving us
with more of what's deemed successful. IMO DW should be different
and quirky enough to create its own following, yet we're following
the formulas dictated by the numbers.

Also i percive a difference in entertainments based on its
'subliminal quota'. By that i mean there are ideas which are
deemed necessary or fashionable, ideas which finds their way
into the mix just so that those programs are amoungst those pre-selected
for our entertainment. Ideas or modes of thought,
which makes the drama instantly outdated and offputting. If
it illuminates then fine, but most cases it wont, it merely
adds to the perponderance of similar influences. Maybe its
just me.

Right Field drama?

Its hard to put a handle on this, call it socially engineered
drama, where entertainment is secondary to the promotion and
acclimatation to those other directions for thought. Contracting
thought, instead of expanding it, commanding in the absence of
any alternative thought.

Which leaves one to ask where are the Artists... the brave
mavericks with their unique perspective? Have they all vacated
the stage for a scientific principle?


Rod Sterling, another name to add to your list of significant
mavericks.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

Even when they can afford to go to lots of locations they are still written
like stage plays. Just substitute a different backdrop for a different
location and it's exactly the same.

The basic problem is a lack of any real action and a lack of any real story
telling. It's just people you don't really care about talking to each other
around a dinner table or in their living room or something like that.

> Today's 'green screen' tech, on the face of it, should allow many more
> interesting ways to tell a story, trouble is it is so labour intensive
> and costly.

The whole point of green screen is to film stuff that would be impossible to
film otherwise like special effects and inserting huge backdrops you
couldn't afford to build. It's was never meant to be a replacement for going
on location and would probably be more expensive to do properly, unlike The
Underworld or parts of other Doctor Who stories like Revenge of the
Cybermen.

>
> Then there's the core question, what is entertainment for?

Excatly.

>
> There use to be a stronger sense of purpose for drama, there was a
> sense of drama as communication, education and stimulation. One
> wonders if indoctrination and intellectual stagnation isn't now the
> media's resendetra. Unchallenging understimulating fodder. Safe
> escapes to keep the wheels of production in motion and smug about
> itself. Is this still drama?
>
> Drama when its stimulating, is about who we are, its about what we need
> dispite ourselves, whether we see it now as such, or seek it out in the
> future. Its about that potential in the human psyche for better or
> worst, which will always need to be re-educated. We forearm ourselves,
> forewarn ourselves, with our dramas.

Let's go back to where it all started in order to find out what it's for.

Drama began in the celebration of the mysteries of Dionysus. The term
mystery comes from the Greek mysos meaning sin. So drama was about telling
the story of someone's deeds and misdeeds and it nearly always started with
someone fighting to correct a wrong and rising to fame and when they had
reach their peak then they usually fell back down again by commiting the
same kind of wrongs which they fought against to begin with.

The subjects of ancient drama were always the deeds of the famous, not of
ordinary people. People went to the theatre to get away from ordinary life
because they all hated it. They didn't want to see a modern stage play set
in the kitchen about the family affairs of ordinary people, because they
already had a those of their own. If a production was about ordinary people
then it was always a comedy, which made fun of ordinary life and thus
brought relief. When people saw the famous heroes of the past sowing the
seeds of their own doom they could feel superior to them in their ordinary
lives and when they say them fighting wrongs then there was something for
them to aspire too. So like you said the dramas also acted as forewarning
but the overall effect was to make you feel good and that's what
entertainment is there for. It's there to make the viewer feel good.

Shakespeare wrote in exactly the same way. If it was about ordinary people
then it was always a comedy and if it was a drama then it was about people
who had fame or about magic and adventure. Indiana Jones, James Bond, 300,
Harry Potter and Star Wars are the continuation of the tradition of William
Shakespeare, not Kramer vs. Kramer. Has anyone ever heard of that since it
won an Oscar? It's stuff like that which brings disgrace to the Oscars and
to TV and drama awards in general. It should always be the most popular
stuff that wins the award for best film, best TV drama etc.

>
> Like a few of you here, i grew up on 3 channels. Beebs 1 & 2, itv.
> That was it up until the 80's. Then you had c4 and c5, and then the

It was worse than just 3 channels. Most of them were off air for most of the
day. You only had about 8 or 9 hours in the afternoon and evening on
weekdays.

> explosion of satalite/cable channels.
>
> With only 3 channels to choose from we were exposed to gamut of ideas
> and influences. Back then day time tv comprised of programs for
> schools, which in its own way must have acted to civilised the harsher
> elements of society. Late night tv had open university programs, again

Who actually watched the programmes for schools when school kids were at
school doing lessons? You only got to see them in the school holidays and
maybe one or two at school, especially before video recorders came into the
class room and then there was no point in making schools programmes because
they just played back the old recordings.

> exposing you in a benign way to ideas which hinted, in its own way, at
> the rational order of things.
>
> Our dramaa can comedies ran parallel to our debates, high and low brow
> with a fair amount of course humour thrown in, [carry on's no
> withstanding]. It was the mix, this wide selection from a few channels
> which entertained and educated. These days there is so much to choose
> from, that we now select our own entertainment, and in that way cease
> to be entertained. We can now avoid what's good for us and never know
> it.

The problem is that most of the stuff made for TV these days is absolute
rubbish, interned for one main audience, middle aged housewives with low
IQs. Most of it is not even drama. It's reality TV and game shows. As such
it's unwatchable by the majority of TV viewers and you can see from the
ratings that hardly anyone even watches it.

>
> One way pass this habit of seeking what we already know, is simply to
> settle on a given channel on for an extended period of time and in
> that way be surprised by the unexpected, but i digress.
>

Based on the above I have to disagree. Daytime television is completely
unwatchable and I'd rather listen to the radio. Ever since they moved the 9
O'clock news to 10pm and put EastEnders only almost every weekday it's been
alomost impossible for me to watch evening television.

The only shows I watch now are Doctor Who, Merlin, and Strictly. Everything
else I might want to watch I record, and most of the time I don't even watch
the recordings.

Decent comedy on TV has almost completely disappeared. Maybe Red Dwarf X
might be good. I don't know. I have it recorded but I've not watched it yet.
Where are the Are You Being Serveds, Dad's Armys, Some Mothers Do Ave Ems,
Allo Allos, Up Pompeiis, Black Adders, The Two Ronnies, Morecombe and Wises
and so on?

>
> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?

Like I said. It's there to make you feel good and depressing stuff like
EastEnders doesn't, and nor does daytime television and not to dramas which
are written like stage plays.

Most of the good drama back in the 70s and 80s wasn't stuff produced by the
BBC. It was drama bought from America or made by Lew Grade or devised by
Sidney Newman like The Avengers and Doctor Who.

Drama needs to be written in the style of Greek epic cycle of mythology and
in the style of US comic strips, not in the style of Victorian domestic
stage plays because that's what makes people feel good.

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8bi1u$1pl$1...@dont-email.me...

>
>
> Lew Grade, like Hitchcock, got entertainment. Post-war American movies did
> very well in the UK while even today some people still sneer at US
> entertainment. Yet, where has this sneering got anyone? Where have all the
> dreary kitchen sink dramas that win obscure awards got anyone? The most
> exportable Japanese directors also get entertainment. So what is it that
> Lew
> Grade. Hitchcock, Kurosawa (and others) get? I have my ideas but I'll
> leave the question open for others to answer.

Here's another idea. Maybe all the good ideas for TV drama have already been
done and because of the copyright laws new writers are not permitted to
write anything similar. Instead they try to come up with something
completely different and usually that results in them producing rubbish
because it breaks all the established laws of good drama.

Still there's nothing stopping them from bringing back successful formulas
like Robin Hood for the umpteenth time. So why don't they? Why are the BBC
funding 'stage plays' instead which always do badly in the ratings. It's not
encouraging new talent. It's just encouraging bad writing. If it's because
of budget constraints they could easily do a few new sitcoms but then again
all the good ideas have probably already been done. It's just the same with
alternative comedy. It was never popular. Traditional comedy always does
better but we're stuck with alternative comedy because all the good jokes
have already been told or there's some PC lunatic saying you can't do that
on TV even though it's that sort of stuff that sells the most videos. Having
said that there's also PC lunatics ruining good drama as well.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

On 18/11/12 21:42, Agamemnon wrote:
> "FishFood"<do...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

>>

>> On the point of Brit TV writing like stage plays, i would say it does go
>> back to budget, eg how many location can you afford in that 40 min slot.
>>
>
> Even when they can afford to go to lots of locations they are still written
> like stage plays. Just substitute a different backdrop for a different
> location and it's exactly the same.
>
> The basic problem is a lack of any real action and a lack of any real story
> telling. It's just people you don't really care about talking to each other
> around a dinner table or in their living room or something like that.

We love our Domestics, or so you would imgine seeing all those soaps.

There's something to be said for those bold statements on power. Dynasty
and its ilk, the big wheels in motion, or something for
the cogs.

>>
>> Like a few of you here, i grew up on 3 channels. Beebs 1& 2, itv.

>> That was it up until the 80's. Then you had c4 and c5, and then the
>
> It was worse than just 3 channels. Most of them were off air for most of the
> day. You only had about 8 or 9 hours in the afternoon and evening on
> weekdays.
>
>> explosion of satalite/cable channels.
>>
>> With only 3 channels to choose from we were exposed to gamut of ideas
>> and influences. Back then day time tv comprised of programs for
>> schools, which in its own way must have acted to civilised the harsher
>> elements of society. Late night tv had open university programs, again
>
> Who actually watched the programmes for schools when school kids were at
> school doing lessons? You only got to see them in the school holidays and
> maybe one or two at school, especially before video recorders came into the
> class room and then there was no point in making schools programmes because
> they just played back the old recordings.
>

ok, but i'm thinking of all those folks at home during the day, be
they the elderly or the unemployed, who had no choice but to watch what
passed for day time tv. You could call it pacifying tv, there in the
background, with no one any the wiser to this influence. The point is
it was there, back in the day, as a factor.

>> exposing you in a benign way to ideas which hinted, in its own way, at
>> the rational order of things.
>>

>> Our dramas and comedies ran parallel to our debates, high and low brow

>> with a fair amount of course humour thrown in, [carry on's no
>> withstanding]. It was the mix, this wide selection from a few channels
>> which entertained and educated. These days there is so much to choose
>> from, that we now select our own entertainment, and in that way cease
>> to be entertained. We can now avoid what's good for us and never know
>> it.
>
> The problem is that most of the stuff made for TV these days is absolute
> rubbish, interned for one main audience, middle aged housewives with low
> IQs. Most of it is not even drama. It's reality TV and game shows. As such
> it's unwatchable by the majority of TV viewers and you can see from the
> ratings that hardly anyone even watches it.
>

These days, i suspects the schedulers and planners have made way for
our social engineers, and so when you see reality tv, what you are in
fact seeing is a cheap idea of social broadcasting. Its like those
instructional programs made for industry. Airports workers, cops
on patrol, dog whispering, and any number of other jobs masqurading
as entertainments. Instead of creating drama from those experiances, its
filmed as real, since we need to be shown what real work looks
like, apparently. ;)

Speaking of Reality tv, any one remember Alan whicker? Now 'his' was
the voice of reality tv, back when it held a degree of wit, and no
little condescension.

>>
>> One way pass this habit of seeking what we already know, is simply to

>> settle on a given channel for an extended period of time and in

>> that way be surprised by the unexpected, but i digress.
>>
>
> Based on the above I have to disagree. Daytime television is completely
> unwatchable and I'd rather listen to the radio. Ever since they moved the 9
> O'clock news to 10pm and put EastEnders only almost every weekday it's been

> almost impossible for me to watch evening television.
>

Its the same with The Bill. I wondered about that, when it was
over-sheduled until its audience lost interest and it fell by the way.
Makes sense now, if you wanted to run it down and into the ground.
Or put another way, how do you make people tire of their favorite
stapples? Boredom seems to figure in these massinations with our
collective imagination. Bored people will jumped at anything to
releave the tedium of existance.

Ditto sky movies, as another example. If you've seen it all before,
then rather than watch the same thing again, you'll watch whatever
limited alternative is placed before you. Apparent choice is then
about whatever you've not seen before.

> The only shows I watch now are Doctor Who, Merlin, and Strictly. Everything
> else I might want to watch I record, and most of the time I don't even watch
> the recordings.
>
> Decent comedy on TV has almost completely disappeared. Maybe Red Dwarf X
> might be good. I don't know. I have it recorded but I've not watched it yet.
> Where are the Are You Being Serveds, Dad's Armys, Some Mothers Do Ave Ems,
> Allo Allos, Up Pompeiis, Black Adders, The Two Ronnies, Morecombe and Wises
> and so on?

Ah them were the days... our parents tv. As the latest to that
stage in life, we should now claim those old memories as our tv. What's
lacking is tv programing which recognises who we were, and have since
become.

>>
>> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
>> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?
>
> Like I said. It's there to make you feel good and depressing stuff like
> EastEnders doesn't, and nor does daytime television and not to dramas which
> are written like stage plays.
>
> Most of the good drama back in the 70s and 80s wasn't stuff produced by the
> BBC. It was drama bought from America or made by Lew Grade or devised by
> Sidney Newman like The Avengers and Doctor Who.
>
> Drama needs to be written in the style of Greek epic cycle of mythology and
> in the style of US comic strips, not in the style of Victorian domestic
> stage plays because that's what makes people feel good.
>

..."that what makes people feel good"

who says drama these days wants to make people feel good. Its just as
likely to rub them the wrong way, or set them on edge, or generally
depress. We're talking now of the scientific principle. There's a
reason for our malise, and its not simply because there's no talent
or that the talent is spread thin and now competes with the big bucks
abroad.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8bt93$mhi$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> On 18/11/12 21:42, Agamemnon wrote:
>> "FishFood"<do...@home.com> wrote in message
>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>
>>>
>>> On the point of Brit TV writing like stage plays, i would say it does go
>>> back to budget, eg how many location can you afford in that 40 min slot.
>>>
>>
>> Even when they can afford to go to lots of locations they are still
>> written
>> like stage plays. Just substitute a different backdrop for a different
>> location and it's exactly the same.
>>
>> The basic problem is a lack of any real action and a lack of any real
>> story
>> telling. It's just people you don't really care about talking to each
>> other
>> around a dinner table or in their living room or something like that.
>
> We love our Domestics, or so you would imgine seeing all those soaps.

I think there's only one kind of people watching these soaps. It's obvious
from their generic name. It's the people who go out to do the shopping and
buy the real soap. They're directed at the feeble of intelligence who will
do anything a TV commercial tells them to, and that is mainly women and
mostly housewives and househusbands with low IQs.

Soaps have destroyed British television and reality shows have come in like
vultures to rip everything from the carcass.

That's why Dynasty and Dallas were popular among male audiences as well
whereas today's soaps are not. Their audience is almost entirely female.
There has to be some sort of biological difference between the male and
female brain that can explain why women can put up with domestics and
kitchen sink dramas and most men can't.

>
>>>
>>> Like a few of you here, i grew up on 3 channels. Beebs 1& 2, itv.
>>> That was it up until the 80's. Then you had c4 and c5, and then the
>>
>> It was worse than just 3 channels. Most of them were off air for most of
>> the
>> day. You only had about 8 or 9 hours in the afternoon and evening on
>> weekdays.
>>
>>> explosion of satalite/cable channels.
>>>
>>> With only 3 channels to choose from we were exposed to gamut of ideas
>>> and influences. Back then day time tv comprised of programs for
>>> schools, which in its own way must have acted to civilised the harsher
>>> elements of society. Late night tv had open university programs, again
>>
>> Who actually watched the programmes for schools when school kids were at
>> school doing lessons? You only got to see them in the school holidays and
>> maybe one or two at school, especially before video recorders came into
>> the
>> class room and then there was no point in making schools programmes
>> because
>> they just played back the old recordings.
>>
>
> ok, but i'm thinking of all those folks at home during the day, be
> they the elderly or the unemployed, who had no choice but to watch what

Or people who have to work evenings or nights.

>who had no choice but to watch what
> passed for day time tv. You could call it pacifying tv, there in the

They had the choice of listening to the radio instead and I think most did
and still do. Well they better otherwise I'm wasting my time broadcasting to
them.

> background, with no one any the wiser to this influence. The point is
> it was there, back in the day, as a factor.

Most of the time is was a picture of a testcard.

>
>>> exposing you in a benign way to ideas which hinted, in its own way, at
>>> the rational order of things.
>>>
>>> Our dramas and comedies ran parallel to our debates, high and low brow
>>> with a fair amount of course humour thrown in, [carry on's no
>>> withstanding]. It was the mix, this wide selection from a few channels
>>> which entertained and educated. These days there is so much to choose
>>> from, that we now select our own entertainment, and in that way cease
>>> to be entertained. We can now avoid what's good for us and never know
>>> it.
>>
>> The problem is that most of the stuff made for TV these days is absolute
>> rubbish, interned for one main audience, middle aged housewives with low
>> IQs. Most of it is not even drama. It's reality TV and game shows. As
>> such
>> it's unwatchable by the majority of TV viewers and you can see from the
>> ratings that hardly anyone even watches it.
>>
>
> These days, i suspects the schedulers and planners have made way for
> our social engineers, and so when you see reality tv, what you are in
> fact seeing is a cheap idea of social broadcasting. Its like those
> instructional programs made for industry. Airports workers, cops
> on patrol, dog whispering, and any number of other jobs masqurading
> as entertainments. Instead of creating drama from those experiances, its
> filmed as real, since we need to be shown what real work looks
> like, apparently. ;)

Lol... You might as well point a camera at a newly painted wall. Didn't
Channel 4 do that once?

>
> Speaking of Reality tv, any one remember Alan whicker? Now 'his' was
> the voice of reality tv, back when it held a degree of wit, and no little
> condescension.

Hated Alan Whicker. I was expecting him to go to places like Egypt and Rome
to show us the pyramids and Egyptian and Roman architecture, but instead he
decided to go down some dreary backstreet in the middle of nowhere and talk
to dreary people that had nothing meaningful or important to say about
anything. It was totally boring.

What is lacking is TV programming which is based on the traditional formula
which has worked for over 2500 years since the time of Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Aristophanes, Menander, Plautus and Terence, and served
Shakespeare well too along with Perry and Croft.

>
>>>
>>> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
>>> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?
>>
>> Like I said. It's there to make you feel good and depressing stuff like
>> EastEnders doesn't, and nor does daytime television and not to dramas
>> which
>> are written like stage plays.
>>
>> Most of the good drama back in the 70s and 80s wasn't stuff produced by
>> the
>> BBC. It was drama bought from America or made by Lew Grade or devised by
>> Sidney Newman like The Avengers and Doctor Who.
>>
>> Drama needs to be written in the style of Greek epic cycle of mythology
>> and
>> in the style of US comic strips, not in the style of Victorian domestic
>> stage plays because that's what makes people feel good.
>>
>
> ..."that what makes people feel good"
>
> who says drama these days wants to make people feel good. Its just as
> likely to rub them the wrong way, or set them on edge, or generally

Well that's the point I was making. Drama is supposed to be there to make
people feel good but most of today's drama doesn't do that and in fact does
exactly the opposite.

> depress. We're talking now of the scientific principle. There's a
> reason for our malise, and its not simply because there's no talent
> or that the talent is spread thin and now competes with the big bucks
> abroad.

Maybe everyone has already been done. The same question was being asked in
ancient times as well, why was there no great drama after Euripides. Why was
there no great comedy after Menander. It was the same question until the
Romans decided to copy it and follow it up. Then the question came back
again after Terence. And of course the same applied to poetry as well. Where
were the great epic poets after Eumelus and Alcmaeon. You had to wait 600
years until Ovid. Meanwhile their poems were turned into plays by the likes
of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and Apollonius of Rhodes had a go at
writing romantic novels based on them, which of course begged the question
what happened to the Romantic novelists after Heliodorus, etc. etc.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:7cKdnZQwEetWEDTN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> That's why Dynasty and Dallas were popular among male audiences as well
> whereas today's soaps are not. Their audience is almost entirely female.
> There has to be some sort of biological difference between the male and
> female brain that can explain why women can put up with domestics and
> kitchen sink dramas and most men can't.
>

> Hated Alan Whicker. I was expecting him to go to places like Egypt and
> Rome to show us the pyramids and Egyptian and Roman architecture, but
> instead he decided to go down some dreary backstreet in the middle of
> nowhere and talk to dreary people that had nothing meaningful or important
> to say about anything. It was totally boring.

> Well that's the point I was making. Drama is supposed to be there to make
> people feel good but most of today's drama doesn't do that and in fact
> does exactly the opposite.

Power and abstractions v doing and relationships. Men and women look for
different things with an overlap somewhere in the middle. While I was on the
train a months ago I overheard two men and two women in separate parts of
the carriage having conversations. They were a textbook example. The men
just shared information and observations in bursts. The women were much more
energetic and talked about who did what (and to whom).

I liked Alan Wicker's show on America. New York was an eye opener. There was
this scene where a transgender woman recalled being picked up by dude and
letting the cat out of the in the back of a taxi. Dude turns to jelly and
asks her to fuck him. She turns to the camera and says: "Hey, fuck me. I'm
the bitch." Well, I thought it was funny. I guess, you had to be there.

Drama, like any other media, obeys economics or the second law of
thermodynamics. In an ever competitive market chasing smaller revenues some
media tries to be more attention grabbing and negative. The capital flow of
the content is from you to them. So you end up feeling a net emotional loss.
As a one off this can be fine but when it's often enough and sustained for
long enough you will drain out faster than you can fill up.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8bk8e$2lj$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

I don't watch Nikita for the spooky gun waving. It's more the sense of
discovery and emotional spin they put on the show. The latest series has
taken a tumble on that so I'm not liking it so much but they have kept
enough in there to keep me watching for now.

I've never been into Kurosawa for some reason. I enjoy watching programmes
about Kurosawa and his movies. Sounds odd but whatever.

The alternative comedians had their time then sold out as far as I can tell.
Sykes said comedy would skip a generation. Looking at the clips and reports
of what passes for British comedy today I have to say I agree with him or,
at least, I don't find British comedy very funny - just banal, abusive, and
exploitative. This is fine if it's kept in its own ghetto. Unfortunately,
someone decided to make it mainstream regardless of its political and
socially corrosive effects.

Many people say women make bad comedians. I disagree, and think they're
hilarious. The issue is women's humour is different. It's less "clever" and
visual, and more observational and emotional. Unfortunately, the more pushy
women have this nasty habit of emulating men so the new surge of female
comedians are just as bad as the men. (It's actually a bit more complicated
than that and becomes a more involved discussion than my brain can handle
right now.)

Rod Serling was genius. I didn't appreciate how much until I read up on him.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8d4n6$3og$1...@dont-email.me...

> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
> news:7cKdnZQwEetWEDTN...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>
>> That's why Dynasty and Dallas were popular among male audiences as well
>> whereas today's soaps are not. Their audience is almost entirely female.
>> There has to be some sort of biological difference between the male and
>> female brain that can explain why women can put up with domestics and
>> kitchen sink dramas and most men can't.
>>
>> Hated Alan Whicker. I was expecting him to go to places like Egypt and
>> Rome to show us the pyramids and Egyptian and Roman architecture, but
>> instead he decided to go down some dreary backstreet in the middle of
>> nowhere and talk to dreary people that had nothing meaningful or
>> important
>> to say about anything. It was totally boring.
>
>> Well that's the point I was making. Drama is supposed to be there to make
>> people feel good but most of today's drama doesn't do that and in fact
>> does exactly the opposite.
>
> Power and abstractions v doing and relationships. Men and women look for
> different things with an overlap somewhere in the middle. While I was on
> the
> train a months ago I overheard two men and two women in separate parts of
> the carriage having conversations. They were a textbook example. The men
> just shared information and observations in bursts. The women were much
> more
> energetic and talked about who did what (and to whom).
>

So basically the women talked a load of nonsense whereas the men only said
anything if they thought it might be important, and most stuff wasn't. Must
be something to do with filtering out information. I wonder if they still do
summarisation in English.

I'd like to see how women would summarise the plot of Star Wars compared to
men. Women would probably talk about Princess Leia and Han Solo and quote
almost the entire script scene by scene from start to finish and men would
actually tell you it was about getting the plans of the death star to the
resistance in order to figure out how to destroy it and free the galaxy.

I think that's probably what the problem is with modern TV drama. It's
trying to attract mainly women viewers to please the advertisers by dumping
everything down so that it's almost totally devoid of plot and that's
putting men off watching it altogether. And the problem with the BBC is they
think they're a commercial station paid for by adverts instead of what
they're supposed to be, a public service broadcasted paid for by the licence
fee, so they do exactly the same as the ITV and are alienating half the
populations. It's no wonder overall TV viewing has dropped.

> I liked Alan Wicker's show on America. New York was an eye opener. There
> was
> this scene where a transgender woman recalled being picked up by dude and
> letting the cat out of the in the back of a taxi. Dude turns to jelly and
> asks her to fuck him. She turns to the camera and says: "Hey, fuck me. I'm
> the bitch." Well, I thought it was funny. I guess, you had to be there.
>
> Drama, like any other media, obeys economics or the second law of
> thermodynamics. In an ever competitive market chasing smaller revenues
> some
> media tries to be more attention grabbing and negative. The capital flow
> of
> the content is from you to them. So you end up feeling a net emotional
> loss.
> As a one off this can be fine but when it's often enough and sustained for
> long enough you will drain out faster than you can fill up.

The commercial stations have mostly decided that it's women that do the
shopping so they're dumbing down their programming to their level, which is
mainly soap and reality shows and so-called drama which is only about
relationships, just like the government dumbed down the exam system to their
level as well because of PC lunacy.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:moGdna_vkNguDTfN...@eclipse.net.uk...

> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:k8d4n6$3og$1...@dont-email.me...

>> Power and abstractions v doing and relationships. Men and women look for
>> different things with an overlap somewhere in the middle. While I was on
>> the train a months ago I overheard two men and two women in separate
>> parts of the carriage having conversations. They were a textbook example.
>> The men just shared information and observations in bursts. The women
>> were much more energetic and talked about who did what (and to whom).
>
> So basically the women talked a load of nonsense whereas the men only said
> anything if they thought it might be important, and most stuff wasn't.
> Must be something to do with filtering out information. I wonder if they
> still do summarisation in English.
>
> I'd like to see how women would summarise the plot of Star Wars compared
> to men. Women would probably talk about Princess Leia and Han Solo and
> quote almost the entire script scene by scene from start to finish and men
> would actually tell you it was about getting the plans of the death star
> to the resistance in order to figure out how to destroy it and free the
> galaxy.
>
> I think that's probably what the problem is with modern TV drama. It's
> trying to attract mainly women viewers to please the advertisers by
> dumping everything down so that it's almost totally devoid of plot and
> that's putting men off watching it altogether. And the problem with the
> BBC is they think they're a commercial station paid for by adverts instead
> of what they're supposed to be, a public service broadcasted paid for by
> the licence fee, so they do exactly the same as the ITV and are alienating
> half the populations. It's no wonder overall TV viewing has dropped.
>

> The commercial stations have mostly decided that it's women that do the
> shopping so they're dumbing down their programming to their level, which
> is mainly soap and reality shows and so-called drama which is only about
> relationships, just like the government dumbed down the exam system to
> their level as well because of PC lunacy.

What would you want to destroy the death star and free up the galaxy for?
You might as well play ping pong for all the point it has. The clue is
without meaning, which is what we do and how we relate to others, nothing
matters much one way or the other does it?

I don't like sexism, whether it's coming from men or women, so in the
interests of a quieter life will assume you don't really know what you're
saying and just want attention.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

Agamemnon wrote:
> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:k8bt93$mhi$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>> On 18/11/12 21:42, Agamemnon wrote:
>>> "FishFood"<do...@home.com> wrote in message
>>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

>>>

>> ..."that what makes people feel good"
>>
>> who says drama these days wants to make people feel good. Its just as
>> likely to rub them the wrong way, or set them on edge, or generally
>
> Well that's the point I was making. Drama is supposed to be there to make
> people feel good but most of today's drama doesn't do that and in fact does
> exactly the opposite.
>
>> depress. We're talking now of the scientific principle. There's a
>> reason for our malise, and its not simply because there's no talent
>> or that the talent is spread thin and now competes with the big bucks
>> abroad.
>
> Maybe everyone has already been done. The same question was being asked in
> ancient times as well, why was there no great drama after Euripides. Why was
> there no great comedy after Menander. It was the same question until the
> Romans decided to copy it and follow it up. Then the question came back
> again after Terence. And of course the same applied to poetry as well. Where
> were the great epic poets after Eumelus and Alcmaeon. You had to wait 600
> years until Ovid. Meanwhile their poems were turned into plays by the likes
> of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and Apollonius of Rhodes had a go at
> writing romantic novels based on them, which of course begged the question
> what happened to the Romantic novelists after Heliodorus, etc. etc.
>

Here's a thought, how about dusting down some of those classics
dramatical struggle, and pitching them in California, or New York
or Rome, or dare i say it, within the Beeb itself... Use those
stories about power then, to comment on power now. As they say,
something will never change, the fundamental human psyche is, what
its always been.
one

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8e8gn$dlb$1...@dont-email.me...

Oh, well, lets simplify the plot to the absolute basics. Star Wars is about
good overcoming evil. Light overcoming darkness. Finding hope in adversity.

>
> I don't like sexism, whether it's coming from men or women, so in the
> interests of a quieter life will assume you don't really know what you're
> saying and just want attention.

Sexism is what is coming from the broadcasters and I'm totally sick of it
along with PC lunacy. Male viewers are almost entirely being ignored by the
main broadcasters so there's almost no point in watching TV anymore.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

I'm working on something like that, but look at what Hollywood did to the
Iliad. They totally turned it upside down by making wife snatcher Paris into
the hero and Menelaus whose wife he snatched into the villain and also
changing the ending so that Menelaus was killed instead of him getting back
his wife and remarrying her because they still loved each other. Why did
they do this? Do they think they know better than Homer who has lasted over
two and a half thousand years?

Look at what the BBC did to Robin Hood by totally turning that upside down
too and now they're doing it with Merlin. Look at how they mangled Chaucer
and Shakespeare by trying to set them in the modern day.

Whoever is responsible for drama has absolutely no understanding of
literature and thinks viewers are all idiots who can't appreciate and have
no understanding of literature or history either so everything has to be
dumbed down to totally ridiculous levels.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:VradnXEnVPzfIjfN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:k8e8gn$dlb$1...@dont-email.me...

>> What would you want to destroy the death star and free up the galaxy for?
>> You might as well play ping pong for all the point it has. The clue is
>> without meaning, which is what we do and how we relate to others, nothing
>> matters much one way or the other does it?
>
> Oh, well, lets simplify the plot to the absolute basics. Star Wars is
> about good overcoming evil. Light overcoming darkness. Finding hope in
> adversity.
>>
>> I don't like sexism, whether it's coming from men or women, so in the
>> interests of a quieter life will assume you don't really know what you're
>> saying and just want attention.
>
> Sexism is what is coming from the broadcasters and I'm totally sick of it
> along with PC lunacy. Male viewers are almost entirely being ignored by
> the main broadcasters so there's almost no point in watching TV anymore.

Have you ever considered that the issue is professionalism? Dismissing
something as PC strikes me as confusing more than it enlightens.

Sorry. I have an early meeting tomorrow so don't have time to continue this.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"China Blue Danube" <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:chine.bleu-78FB9...@news.eternal-september.org...
> In article <k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com>

> wrote:
>
>> Here's a thought, how about dusting down some of those classics
>> dramatical struggle, and pitching them in California, or New York
>> or Rome, or dare i say it, within the Beeb itself... Use those
>> stories about power then, to comment on power now. As they say,
>> something will never change, the fundamental human psyche is, what
>> its always been.
>> one
>

> That's done sometimes with adapted plays. Simple translations of old Greek
> plays
> don't going to work well: they're wordy, don't use camera moves, and deus
> ex
> machina is harder to take if you don't believe in those gods. Television
> and
> movies depend more on close ups to show emoting, camera moves, flashbacks,
> etc
> instead talking, a more dynamic staging, special effects.
>

We're not talking just about individual plays. We're talking about complete
cycles which make up an entire story from start to finish, though you could
do Aristophanes comedies individually since they move all over the place in
the same way as a modern comedy.

No one's ever done the story of Herakles properly for a start. The best
there's been so far is the Hallmark two part TV movie. The Hercules: The
Legendary Journeys TV series had almost nothing to do with the story of
Herakles whatsoever.

The story of the Trojan War has never been done properly either and I don't
think anyone's done the Orestia or the story of the Seven Against Thebes or
the Epigone and there's loads of other cycles as well.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:7cidnTXIF7ZvVjfN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> We're not talking just about individual plays. We're talking about
> complete cycles which make up an entire story from start to finish, though
> you could do Aristophanes comedies individually since they move all over
> the place in the same way as a modern comedy.
>
> No one's ever done the story of Herakles properly for a start. The best
> there's been so far is the Hallmark two part TV movie. The Hercules: The
> Legendary Journeys TV series had almost nothing to do with the story of
> Herakles whatsoever.
>
> The story of the Trojan War has never been done properly either and I
> don't think anyone's done the Orestia or the story of the Seven Against
> Thebes or the Epigone and there's loads of other cycles as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/nov/19/all-women-julius-caesar-donmar

While you're busy barking out orders from your high chair it looks like the
women have it covered...

LOL

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8egg5$vu9$1...@dont-email.me...

> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
> news:VradnXEnVPzfIjfN...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>
>> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:k8e8gn$dlb$1...@dont-email.me...
>
>>> What would you want to destroy the death star and free up the galaxy
>>> for?
>>> You might as well play ping pong for all the point it has. The clue is
>>> without meaning, which is what we do and how we relate to others,
>>> nothing
>>> matters much one way or the other does it?
>>
>> Oh, well, lets simplify the plot to the absolute basics. Star Wars is
>> about good overcoming evil. Light overcoming darkness. Finding hope in
>> adversity.
>>>
>>> I don't like sexism, whether it's coming from men or women, so in the
>>> interests of a quieter life will assume you don't really know what
>>> you're
>>> saying and just want attention.
>>
>> Sexism is what is coming from the broadcasters and I'm totally sick of it
>> along with PC lunacy. Male viewers are almost entirely being ignored by
>> the main broadcasters so there's almost no point in watching TV anymore.
>
> Have you ever considered that the issue is professionalism? Dismissing

So it's professionalism is it?

No. It's a series of PC dictates which undermine good writing. For example
when the BBC decided to make the new series of Robin Hood they were forced
by dictate to portray more women and people of non-Christian faiths on TV so
they got rid of Friar Tuck and replaced him with a woman and in order to
kill two birds with one stone they also made her into a Muslim healer. No,
that's three birds. Women have to be shown in positions of learning as well.
Lunacy, pure lunacy.

There's another PC dictate going around that women must be portrayed in
positions of power and positions of authority and so on, so history and
literature is turned completely upside down.

And the thing is, portraying Maid Marion as a swashbuckling equal to Robin
Hood is totally defeating the goal these PC lunatics are trying to archive
in the first place because Maid Marion is just perceived as an honorary guy
and the same thing applied to Buffy and Xena.

> something as PC strikes me as confusing more than it enlightens.

Writers are not being allowed to write freely by the PC loonies just like
comedians aren't allowed to tell the jokes they want to tell. Or rather
those that do and those that want to be traditional are being deliberately
excluded from TV.

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8eme2$4r3$1...@dont-email.me...

Yes LOL indeed.

"The obvious question, of course, is: why do an all-female production?
(Actually, you might as well ask, "Why not?" since all-male productions are
fairly common.) For Lloyd, the answer is a straightforward feminist one: she
wishes, in a small way, to redress the gender imbalance that she sees around
her every day in the theatre. It is an imbalance that - although rooted in
theatrical history, not least the fact that Shakespeare wrote 788 male and
141 female characters - has not yet been rectified, either by newer
repertoire or by any significant appetite for gender-blind casting."

So she's even bothered to waste her time counting how many male and female
roles Shakespeare wrote for. Lol...

Has she considered the fact that Shakespeare was probably writing for an all
male audience and women were not permitted to perform on stage so that they
would not be perceived as being nothing more than sex objects.

Well anyway if the production is going to be done in a traditional Roman
setting it might actually be worth watching. But if instead it's being moved
into modern times then it probably won't be.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

In article <QfadnYocn6A6QDfN...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Aga states the facts.

[solar penguin]

Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:

> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:k8d4n6$3og$1...@dont-email.me...
>>

>> Power and abstractions v doing and relationships. Men and women look
>> for different things with an overlap somewhere in the middle. While
>> I was on the
>> train a months ago I overheard two men and two women in separate
>> parts of the carriage having conversations. They were a textbook
>> example. The men just shared information and observations in bursts.
>> The women were much more
>> energetic and talked about who did what (and to whom).
>>
>
> So basically the women talked a load of nonsense whereas the men only
> said anything if they thought it might be important, and most stuff
> wasn't. Must be something to do with filtering out information. I
> wonder if they still do summarisation in English.
>
> I'd like to see how women would summarise the plot of Star Wars
> compared to men. Women would probably talk about Princess Leia and
> Han Solo and quote almost the entire script scene by scene from start
> to finish and men would actually tell you it was about getting the
> plans of the death star to the resistance in order to figure out how
> to destroy it and free the galaxy.

Well, if the men said that, they would be just plain wrong.

Assuming you mean the plot of "Episode IV" rather than the entire two
trilogies, it's about Luke Skywalker's coming-of-age rite-of-passage
journey into adulthood, shamelessly taken from Campbell's Hero with a
Thousand Faces. Compared to that, the irrelevant details of which plans
just happen to be stolen, and which space station just happens to blow
up are nothing but window dressing.

>
> I think that's probably what the problem is with modern TV drama. It's
> trying to attract mainly women viewers to please the advertisers by
> dumping everything down so that it's almost totally devoid of plot
> and that's putting men off watching it altogether.

Worse than that -- a lot of modern TV drama is the male TV executives'
idea of what women viewers want, which isn't necessarily what they
really want.

It goes back to what Charles was saying about the different ways men and
women view stories. Women tend to want to be slowly drawn into the
story world, feeling as though they're a part of it. Men tend to prefer
remaining outside the story world, looking in, especially if there's
something exciting or interesting to look at.

(Personally I share the women's view completely, while Charles seems
uniquely balanced halfway between the two. I'm not sure whether that's
of Zen meditation focussing and balancing his mind, or whether it's
somehow connected to his interest in transgender issues broadening his
horizons. Or just because he's a bit eccentric anyway.)

In the past, a lot of TV drama _had_ to be of the "draws you into the
story world" variety (what you described as being like a stage play)
simply because the way they were shot and edited, not to mention the
budgets available, meant it was hard to sustain lots of exciting stuff
to look at from outside. (Obviously, this was a good thing for those of
us who like being steadily immersed into the story world, even if it
wasn't for the rest of you.)

With changes in the way TV was produced, it did eventually become
practical to produce more and more TV drama that suited the male way of
viewing, so they did. Trying to draw viewers into the story was (and
still is) seen as quaint and old-fashioned. Male viewers thought TV
drama had improved, and male commentators claimed that viewers were now
"too sophisticated" to "allow themselves" to be drawn into the story,
not realising that half the audience actually _wanted_ to be drawn in.

That's when I stopped being interested in TV drama, because it just
wasn't delivering what I wanted any more. A lot of women probably felt
the same way, and the number of female viewers must've started to fall.

Which brings us to the situation we have today...

In an attempt to win back the declining female audience, the TV
companies are making more dramas supposedly intended for women, with
strong female leads, dealing with female issues, etc. But they're still
made in a way that suits the male "outside, looking in" style of
viewing, and thus only the minority of women who view that way really
prefer them. The rest just sort-of accept it, faute de mieux.

For an up-to-date example, look at The Killing III, which started last
weekend on BBC4. Sarah Lund is a feisty female protagonist, who
regularly takes on the corrupt male establishment and wins, while trying
to juggle the complexities of her family life, so at first glance it
would appear to be a series aimed at women. But which style of viewing
does it suit?

Take the scene when Lund and the Special Branch guy were searching the
ship. It was beautifully shot: a marvellous chiaroscuro of light and
shade, with the vivid red blood stains splashed dramatically across the
greys. Great stuff to look at, but would you really want to be there?

Would you want to be anywhere in its bleak, nihilistic world at all?
The previous two series both portrayed a very depressing world, where
most people were corrupt, and _everyone_ (even our feisty heroine)
suffered as their lives steadily got worse and worse, with only hideous,
violent death offering a chance of escape, leaving behind a beautifully
filmed corpse.

It's not surprising that most of its biggest fans seem to be men.

OK, that was an extreme example. But it's interesting that these recent
series, such as that version of Robin Hood that you mentioned, are
simply _not_ attracting female viewers as much as the classic soaps like
Corrie or EastEnders. And this goes back to the fact that the pressures
of making a daily soap mean it just isn't practical to sustain lots of
interesting stuff to look at from outside. Once again, they _have_ to
rely on drawing the audiences in to their world. (Consider the old
cliche about viewers writing to soap characters as if they were real
people.)

Reality shows too need to draw viewers in. If you're not fully immersed
in the competition, you won't care enough to phone in and vote. It's
not surprising that viewers who feel let down by regular drama series
are turning to them instead. (ObWho: Looked at that way, it's
appropriate that Colin Baker agreed to go into the jungle. Shows like
that are the true heirs of the old "draw you in"-style of drama that
classic DW had.)

And this situation is going to remain, until TV executives rediscover
the need to make new drama series that can slowly draw viewers into the
story world. And that doesn't look set to happen any time soon.

[Agamemnon]

"solar penguin" <solar....@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:k8g8lk$96u$1...@dont-email.me...

I asked about the plot not the theme. You might as well give the same
description to American Graphiti.

> Thousand Faces. Compared to that, the irrelevant details of which plans
> just happen to be stolen, and which space station just happens to blow up
> are nothing but window dressing.

Obviously you have lost the plot. Literally.

>
>>
>> I think that's probably what the problem is with modern TV drama. It's
>> trying to attract mainly women viewers to please the advertisers by
>> dumping everything down so that it's almost totally devoid of plot
>> and that's putting men off watching it altogether.
>
> Worse than that -- a lot of modern TV drama is the male TV executives'
> idea of what women viewers want, which isn't necessarily what they really
> want.
>
> It goes back to what Charles was saying about the different ways men and
> women view stories. Women tend to want to be slowly drawn into the story
> world, feeling as though they're a part of it. Men tend to prefer
> remaining outside the story world, looking in, especially if there's
> something exciting or interesting to look at.
>
> (Personally I share the women's view completely, while Charles seems
> uniquely balanced halfway between the two. I'm not sure whether that's of
> Zen meditation focussing and balancing his mind, or whether it's somehow
> connected to his interest in transgender issues broadening his horizons.
> Or just because he's a bit eccentric anyway.)
>
> In the past, a lot of TV drama _had_ to be of the "draws you into the
> story world" variety (what you described as being like a stage play)
> simply because the way they were shot and edited, not to mention the
> budgets available, meant it was hard to sustain lots of exciting stuff to
> look at from outside. (Obviously, this was a good thing for those of us
> who like being steadily immersed into the story world, even if it wasn't
> for the rest of you.)

You might as well put it on radio if you're going to do that.

TV is a dynamic visual medium. It's needs action and movement and an ever
evolving plot.

>
> With changes in the way TV was produced, it did eventually become
> practical to produce more and more TV drama that suited the male way of
> viewing, so they did. Trying to draw viewers into the story was (and
> still is) seen as quaint and old-fashioned. Male viewers thought TV

Unfortunaly the 'stage play' TV productions never had much of a story to
begin with. It was nothing but never ending dialogue which was only there to
fill time and was so mind numbingly boring and uninformative that you
couldn't bare to keep watching long enough for any actual story to be
revealed. Take "I Claudius" for example.

> drama had improved, and male commentators claimed that viewers were now
> "too sophisticated" to "allow themselves" to be drawn into the story, not
> realising that half the audience actually _wanted_ to be drawn in.
>
> That's when I stopped being interested in TV drama, because it just wasn't
> delivering what I wanted any more. A lot of women probably felt the same
> way, and the number of female viewers must've started to fall.

The problem is that now there isn't any story at all. No plot either. It's
nothing but relationships and that's why it's unwatchable.

>
> Which brings us to the situation we have today...
>
> In an attempt to win back the declining female audience, the TV

Win back? Female audience? The problem is the declining male audience which
has been totally alienated.

> companies are making more dramas supposedly intended for women, with
> strong female leads, dealing with female issues, etc. But they're still
> made in a way that suits the male "outside, looking in" style of viewing,
> and thus only the minority of women who view that way really prefer them.
> The rest just sort-of accept it, faute de mieux.

So they've managed to piss of both sexes at the same time. On top of that
there's the entire line up of daytime reality shows, cookery programmes,
game shows and soap operas that have put men off TV altogether.

>
> For an up-to-date example, look at The Killing III, which started last
> weekend on BBC4. Sarah Lund is a feisty female protagonist, who regularly
> takes on the corrupt male establishment and wins, while trying to juggle
> the complexities of her family life, so at first glance it would appear to
> be a series aimed at women. But which style of viewing does it suit?
>
> Take the scene when Lund and the Special Branch guy were searching the
> ship. It was beautifully shot: a marvellous chiaroscuro of light and
> shade, with the vivid red blood stains splashed dramatically across the
> greys. Great stuff to look at, but would you really want to be there?
>
> Would you want to be anywhere in its bleak, nihilistic world at all?

Of course not. It's the kind of rubbish I would never watch.

> The previous two series both portrayed a very depressing world, where most
> people were corrupt, and _everyone_ (even our feisty heroine) suffered as
> their lives steadily got worse and worse, with only hideous, violent death
> offering a chance of escape, leaving behind a beautifully filmed corpse.
>
> It's not surprising that most of its biggest fans seem to be men.
>
> OK, that was an extreme example. But it's interesting that these recent
> series, such as that version of Robin Hood that you mentioned, are simply
> _not_ attracting female viewers as much as the classic soaps like Corrie
> or EastEnders. And this goes back to the fact that the pressures of
> making a daily soap mean it just isn't practical to sustain lots of
> interesting stuff to look at from outside. Once again, they _have_ to
> rely on drawing the audiences in to their world. (Consider the old cliche
> about viewers writing to soap characters as if they were real people.)
>

The point is that men watch TV to get away from daily life and soaps like
EastEnders and Corrie are forcing it back through their noses.

> Reality shows too need to draw viewers in. If you're not fully immersed
> in the competition, you won't care enough to phone in and vote. It's

Which again is forcing daily life you want to get away from back through
your nose.

> not surprising that viewers who feel let down by regular drama series are
> turning to them instead. (ObWho: Looked at that way, it's appropriate
> that Colin Baker agreed to go into the jungle. Shows like that are the
> true heirs of the old "draw you in"-style of drama that classic DW had.)

The only reason people watch I'm A Celebrity is to see the celebrities
humiliated.

>
> And this situation is going to remain, until TV executives rediscover the
> need to make new drama series that can slowly draw viewers into the story
> world. And that doesn't look set to happen any time soon.

What they need to do is look at the way the Americans are doing it and copy
it.

Drama is about making you feel good. It's about taking you away from
reality. It's about telling a story in a way which isn't boring. It's about
getting you to ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask and giving you the
answers. It's has to be all of the above not just some.

Stage plays don't fit the bill because they're slow, boring and usually
about ordinary daily life. Arty farty stuff doesn't fit the bill either,
because it's all Emperors New Clothes. And PC lunacy just pisses off
everyone.

What is needed is traditional story telling and for TV execs to take a look
at what has always been popular and that's stuff like the Greek cycles of
myths, the Viking sagas, the Hindu sagas, the Arabian Nights and the modern
equivalent.

[FishFood]

China Blue Danube wrote:
> In article <k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>

>> Here's a thought, how about dusting down some of those classics
>> dramatical struggle, and pitching them in California, or New York
>> or Rome, or dare i say it, within the Beeb itself... Use those
>> stories about power then, to comment on power now. As they say,
>> something will never change, the fundamental human psyche is, what
>> its always been.
>> one
>

> That's done sometimes with adapted plays. Simple translations of old Greek plays
> don't going to work well: they're wordy, don't use camera moves, and deus ex
> machina is harder to take if you don't believe in those gods. Television and
> movies depend more on close ups to show emoting, camera moves, flashbacks, etc
> instead talking, a more dynamic staging, special effects.
>

It depends on how faithful you would want to be to the originals.
For example references to gods could be company CEO's playing with
the destiny of their subordinates, the way 'Trading Places' did it
back in the day. I'm sure you could find interesting ways to pitch
and tell the story and not be tied to the literal words of those
stories. The point would be to 'use' those stories to comment on
the human condition. That which will always be part of our natures.

[FishFood]

Agamemnon wrote:
> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>> Agamemnon wrote:
>>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
>>> news:k8bt93$mhi$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>>> On 18/11/12 21:42, Agamemnon wrote:
>>>>> "FishFood"<do...@home.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>>> ..."that what makes people feel good"

That said, there was that interesting series of Shakespeare 'comedies'
from a few years back which i wouldn't mind see being repeated. It is
possible to breath life into those stories with a modern context and
do them justice.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> China Blue Danube wrote:
>> In article <k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's a thought, how about dusting down some of those classics
>>> dramatical struggle, and pitching them in California, or New York
>>> or Rome, or dare i say it, within the Beeb itself... Use those
>>> stories about power then, to comment on power now. As they say,
>>> something will never change, the fundamental human psyche is, what
>>> its always been.
>>> one
>>
>> That's done sometimes with adapted plays. Simple translations of old
>> Greek plays don't going to work well: they're wordy, don't use camera
>> moves, and deus ex machina is harder to take if you don't believe in
>> those gods. Television and movies depend more on close ups to show
>> emoting, camera moves, flashbacks, etc instead talking, a more dynamic
>> staging, special effects.
>>
>
> It depends on how faithful you would want to be to the originals.
> For example references to gods could be company CEO's playing with
> the destiny of their subordinates, the way 'Trading Places' did it

References to gods are not a problem if they are taken in historical
context. They only appear as deus ex machia in the comedies of Aristophanes
and elsewhere they're just alluded to unless you're dealing with personal
appearances by Heracles, Dionysus and Prometheus in their own plays.

Aristophanes will work without any alteration even if you don't know any
back story but he's funnier if you do.

You're not going to get away with making Prometheus into a company CEO
chained to a rock and having his liver eaten by a vulture and then growing
back the following day in a modern context.

Dionysus in the Bacchantes is all dependent on you knowing the religion and
accepting the culture. You're not going to get away with women tarring
people and goats apart in a modern context.

This is one of the problems with new Doctor Who. None of the writers are
willing to create futuristic cultures that are different to our own. To all
intents and purposes not doing so is tantamount to racism.

> back in the day. I'm sure you could find interesting ways to pitch
> and tell the story and not be tied to the literal words of those

If I have to rewrite the Danaids in order to justify the 49 of the 50
daughters of Danaus killing their husbands, the sons of Aegyptus then it
won't be the Danaids, it would be something else and it would be an insult
to the originally play. The only way it would work in a modern context if it
were set in India or Pakistan and people from those countries would probably
find it insulting also and it would be the equivalent of setting a play
written abound World War I at the time the war took place in the 21st
century complete with trench warfare. It's totally ridiculous.

> stories. The point would be to 'use' those stories to comment on
> the human condition. That which will always be part of our natures.

The point is that these plays were not written to comment on the human
condition at all. They were written to entertain and to relay history and
propaganda. You can find the support for this in Aristophanes Frogs where
Dionysus goes to the underworld to ask Hades to give back Euripides in order
to make the Athenians feel more patriotic and willing to fight back against
the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War after their navy had been destroyed.
In the end it isn't Euripides who Dionysus chooses to bring back because he
decides that Euripides plays were responsible for depressing the Athenians
morale.

[Agamemnon]

"China Blue Danube" <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:chine.bleu-5A9C9...@news.eternal-september.org...
> In article <k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com>

> That's what I would call adaptions. As to basic human truths, I think the
> only
> real change in humanity over the past several centuries has been the
> invention
> of batteries for sex toys.

You're telling me they didn't think of making clockwork ones when they had
clockwork computers over 2000 years ago?

[solar penguin]

>> Thousand Faces.

>
> I asked about the plot not the theme. You might as well give the same
> description to American Graphiti.

Hold that thought. I'll come back to it further down the post...

Nowadays I prefer radio drama to new TV drama. Radio still gets it
right for me in a way that TV no longer does.

>
> TV is a dynamic visual medium. It's needs action and movement and an
> ever evolving plot.

It's certainly a visual medium. But not necessarily a dynamic visual
one. It doesn't _need_ action and movement, even if you do just happen
to enjoy them.

>
>>
>> With changes in the way TV was produced, it did eventually become
>> practical to produce more and more TV drama that suited the male way
>> of viewing, so they did. Trying to draw viewers into the story was
>> (and still is) seen as quaint and old-fashioned. Male viewers
>> thought TV
>
> Unfortunaly the 'stage play' TV productions never had much of a story
> to begin with.

After being so pedantic about the definition of "plot" in the Star Wars
bit, above, you're now (deliberately?) getting "plot" and "story"
muddled up here. Shame on you.

Remember, plots are about things happening. Stories are about evolving
relationships and emotional journeys. Ideally, a drama should have
both. But if there's only room for one, I prefer it to be the story.

> It was nothing but never ending dialogue which was
> only there to fill time and was so mind numbingly boring and
> uninformative that you couldn't bare to keep watching long enough for
> any actual story to be revealed. Take "I Claudius" for example.

I loved "I, Clavdivs". Not as good as the books, but still great telly.
I'd even say it was better than the recent radio version!

>
>> drama had improved, and male commentators claimed that viewers were
>> now "too sophisticated" to "allow themselves" to be drawn into the
>> story, not realising that half the audience actually _wanted_ to be
>> drawn in. That's when I stopped being interested in TV drama, because
>> it just
>> wasn't delivering what I wanted any more. A lot of women probably
>> felt the same way, and the number of female viewers must've started
>> to fall.
>
> The problem is that now there isn't any story at all. No plot either.
> It's nothing but relationships and that's why it's unwatchable.
>

That's a later development. Let's take things one step at a time.

>>
>> Which brings us to the situation we have today...
>>
>> In an attempt to win back the declining female audience, the TV
>
> Win back? Female audience? The problem is the declining male audience
> which has been totally alienated.
>

Again, you're getting things in the wrong order...

First, they started losing female viewers, as drama became style over
substance.

Then, they began an unsuccessful attempt to win back those viewers with
what they hoped were women-friendly new dramas.

Finally, this ended up alienating male viewers.

You see, look at one step at a time, and everything falls into place.

>> companies are making more dramas supposedly intended for women, with
>> strong female leads, dealing with female issues, etc. But they're
>> still made in a way that suits the male "outside, looking in" style
>> of viewing, and thus only the minority of women who view that way
>> really prefer them. The rest just sort-of accept it, faute de mieux.
>
> So they've managed to piss of both sexes at the same time.

That's about it, as far as drama goes.

>
> What they need to do is look at the way the Americans are doing it
> and copy it.
>
> Drama is about making you feel good. It's about taking you away from
> reality. It's about telling a story in a way which isn't boring. It's
> about getting you to ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask and
> giving you the answers. It's has to be all of the above not just some.

I'd say it can be any combination of those. It doesn't have to be all
at once. That's overkill.

e.g. It can about confronting reality, not just getting you away from
it. It can ask questions, but leave you to supply your own answers.

>
> Stage plays don't fit the bill because they're slow, boring and
> usually about ordinary daily life.

Yet elsewhere in this thread you seem in favour of doing non-modernised,
non-updated versions of the comedies of Aristophanes and things like
that.

> Arty farty stuff doesn't fit the
> bill either, because it's all Emperors New Clothes. And PC lunacy
> just pisses off everyone.
>
> What is needed is traditional story telling and for TV execs to take
> a look at what has always been popular and that's stuff like the
> Greek cycles of myths, the Viking sagas, the Hindu sagas, the Arabian
> Nights and the modern equivalent.

That's one possible approach. Whether all TV drama should be like that
is another question...

[Agamemnon]

"solar penguin" <solar....@googlemail.com> wrote in message

news:k8ib2h$tud$1...@dont-email.me...

Of course it does. If there isn't any action or movement then you might as
well put the production on radio like I said above. This is what the
Americans learned at and early stage and what British TV and cinema have
never learned. US drama is mostly based on comic strips. UK drama is mostly
based on stage plays.

>
>>
>>>
>>> With changes in the way TV was produced, it did eventually become
>>> practical to produce more and more TV drama that suited the male way
>>> of viewing, so they did. Trying to draw viewers into the story was
>>> (and still is) seen as quaint and old-fashioned. Male viewers
>>> thought TV
>>
>> Unfortunaly the 'stage play' TV productions never had much of a story
>> to begin with.
>
> After being so pedantic about the definition of "plot" in the Star Wars
> bit, above, you're now (deliberately?) getting "plot" and "story" muddled
> up here. Shame on you.
>
> Remember, plots are about things happening. Stories are about evolving
> relationships and emotional journeys. Ideally, a drama should have both.
> But if there's only room for one, I prefer it to be the story.

There's no story and no plot either. Nothing happens apart from people
talking to each other about stuff which is completely pointless to fill time
and the characters and their relationships are just the same and none the
wiser at the and as at the beginning. (Act One, Scene 1 of a one act one
scene stage play. Location. Two people talking at a party.) "Hey did you see
so and so slipping out with such and such. No I don't know them very well,
but tell me more. Well I think they've gone upstairs. Oh really." ...blah
blah blah... Who cares. What have you learned. Absolutely nothing since none
of these people really exist and you've seen it all before in real life.

>
>> It was nothing but never ending dialogue which was
>> only there to fill time and was so mind numbingly boring and
>> uninformative that you couldn't bare to keep watching long enough for
>> any actual story to be revealed. Take "I Claudius" for example.
>
> I loved "I, Clavdivs". Not as good as the books, but still great telly.
> I'd even say it was better than the recent radio version!

Probably since there's hardly any movement or locations in it.

>
>>
>>> drama had improved, and male commentators claimed that viewers were
>>> now "too sophisticated" to "allow themselves" to be drawn into the
>>> story, not realising that half the audience actually _wanted_ to be
>>> drawn in. That's when I stopped being interested in TV drama, because it
>>> just
>>> wasn't delivering what I wanted any more. A lot of women probably
>>> felt the same way, and the number of female viewers must've started
>>> to fall.
>>
>> The problem is that now there isn't any story at all. No plot either.
>> It's nothing but relationships and that's why it's unwatchable.
>>
>
> That's a later development. Let's take things one step at a time.
>
>>>
>>> Which brings us to the situation we have today...
>>>
>>> In an attempt to win back the declining female audience, the TV
>>
>> Win back? Female audience? The problem is the declining male audience
>> which has been totally alienated.
>>
>
> Again, you're getting things in the wrong order...
>
> First, they started losing female viewers, as drama became style over
> substance.
>

They started losing female viewers as more women went out to work. It had
nothing to do with the style of drama and in fact they gained more male
viewers and TV reached its zenith.

> Then, they began an unsuccessful attempt to win back those viewers with
> what they hoped were women-friendly new dramas.

Without realising the real reason behind there not being as many female
viewers, ie. more women working.

>
> Finally, this ended up alienating male viewers.

Yes.

>
> You see, look at one step at a time, and everything falls into place.
>
>>> companies are making more dramas supposedly intended for women, with
>>> strong female leads, dealing with female issues, etc. But they're
>>> still made in a way that suits the male "outside, looking in" style
>>> of viewing, and thus only the minority of women who view that way
>>> really prefer them. The rest just sort-of accept it, faute de mieux.
>>
>> So they've managed to piss of both sexes at the same time.
>
> That's about it, as far as drama goes.
>
>>
>> What they need to do is look at the way the Americans are doing it
>> and copy it.
>>
>> Drama is about making you feel good. It's about taking you away from
>> reality. It's about telling a story in a way which isn't boring. It's
>> about getting you to ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask and
>> giving you the answers. It's has to be all of the above not just some.
>
> I'd say it can be any combination of those. It doesn't have to be all at
> once. That's overkill.

It has to be all the above. You can't pick and mix.

>
> e.g. It can about confronting reality, not just getting you away from it.
> It can ask questions, but leave you to supply your own answers.
>

If it leaves you having to supply your own answers then it's taught you
nothing, and has probably resulted in pissing you off after having wasted
one and a half hours watching it.

If you want to confront reality then try satire.

>>
>> Stage plays don't fit the bill because they're slow, boring and
>> usually about ordinary daily life.
>
> Yet elsewhere in this thread you seem in favour of doing non-modernised,
> non-updated versions of the comedies of Aristophanes and things like that.

Aristophanes does not need modernising or updating and I wouldn't classify
it as a stage play since it's completely dynamic as is Shakespeare.
Lysistrata is just as pertinent today as it ever was and doesn't need a
change of scene or a change of characters or plot.

>
>> Arty farty stuff doesn't fit the
>> bill either, because it's all Emperors New Clothes. And PC lunacy
>> just pisses off everyone.
>>
>> What is needed is traditional story telling and for TV execs to take
>> a look at what has always been popular and that's stuff like the
>> Greek cycles of myths, the Viking sagas, the Hindu sagas, the Arabian
>> Nights and the modern equivalent.
>
> That's one possible approach. Whether all TV drama should be like that is
> another question...

From what I can deduce, Shakespeare never wrote an original play in his
entire career. Everything he did was copied of earlier stuff which was
successful. This is what TV needs to do today. Pursue ideas and formulas
which have already been successful since everything had already been figured
by Shakespeare's time anyway, and stop trying to think modern writers are
better than him.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:rJmdnTx91_4aKjHN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> There's no story and no plot either. Nothing happens apart from people
> talking to each other about stuff which is completely pointless to fill
> time and the characters and their relationships are just the same and none
> the wiser at the and as at the beginning. (Act One, Scene 1 of a one act
> one scene stage play. Location. Two people talking at a party.) "Hey did
> you see so and so slipping out with such and such. No I don't know them
> very well, but tell me more. Well I think they've gone upstairs. Oh
> really." ...blah blah blah... Who cares. What have you learned. Absolutely
> nothing since none of these people really exist and you've seen it all
> before in real life.

...

> If it leaves you having to supply your own answers then it's taught you
> nothing, and has probably resulted in pissing you off after having wasted
> one and a half hours watching it.

So which one is it?

I spent yesterday in meetings. The contrast between men playing power games
and putting on not very convincing emotional masks, and the women who were
more interested in the content and admitting the bullshit was stark.

The deal went south just in case anyone wants to know. I'm spending some
time doing a rethink and might go elsewhere. I might not. I might just
swallow my losses and walk away. Don't know yet...

The head honcho had a very good idea of what he knew but what he knew is
just a point of view and one certainly not shared by others. The stuff that
mattered or, at least, the stuff *I* thought that mattered was pushed aside
and, on a few occasions, caused his eyes to glaze over. (I bet he watches
'The Killing' and pats himself on the back for being so intellectually
superior while throwing in a few patronising attagirls to show what a modern
man he is.)

So, yeah. Men (or a certain subset of arrogant, backslapping, smug men)
screwed up television. Screwed up society. Screwed up the economy. I don't
believe women are necessarily better because that can swap being punched in
the face with one hand to being backstabbed my the other but a more engaged
dialogue may certainly help reverse the decline.

Mindset matters.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

Keep the logical traditions please!

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca

god,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

[The Doctor]

On 2012-11-21, China Blue Danube <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In article <k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>

> That's what I would call adaptions. As to basic human truths, I think the only
> real change in humanity over the past several centuries has been the invention
> of batteries for sex toys.
>

Is humanity maturing of immaturing?

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca

God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
HTTp://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8ii8c$7jp$1...@dont-email.me...

Not men. Management screwed up television. Management full of PC loonies
that don't understand drama and instead of looking at as script they look at
a sheet of statistics they don't have a clue about either.

Look at who they put in charge of the BBC. Was it someone from
entertainment? No, it was a journalist. The BBC has been going down hill
ever since Billy Cotton went.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:b9KdnX0Y8aCzkjDN...@eclipse.net.uk...

> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:k8ii8c$7jp$1...@dont-email.me...
>>

>> So, yeah. Men (or a certain subset of arrogant, backslapping, smug men)
>> screwed up television. Screwed up society. Screwed up the economy.
>

> Not men. Management screwed up television. Management full of PC loonies
> that don't understand drama and instead of looking at as script they look
> at a sheet of statistics they don't have a clue about either.
>
> Look at who they put in charge of the BBC. Was it someone from
> entertainment? No, it was a journalist. The BBC has been going down hill
> ever since Billy Cotton went.

It's interesting you sidestep the male management question and blame
political correctness. (Careful, grasshopper.)

As an example of dinosaur's versus progressives consider that the impetus to
improve transgender medical treatment in the NHS dived like a Stuka after
Doctor Russell Reed was bullied, armtwisted, and harassed out of practice.
The UK is now a full decade behind Holland and even the US and Australia
have overtaken the UK. A similar pattern is found in entertainment.

As if by magic we may both be right. Maybe a good DG (assuming the good old
boys at the top haven't already filtered out the competition or driven them
underground) will be able to drive necessary change and push out the MBA
types? Win-win.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

In article <b9KdnX0Y8aCzkjDN...@eclipse.net.uk>,

doctor Who in early 1990s. Major management screw up!

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013

[FishFood]

I still say your interpretations would be too much like the originals
to be interpretations. Think situation, or the overall structure of the
story, before the details of what x did to y. These are stories i wont
have heard of, and wont sit down to read, which means they would have
accessible in some other way.

You could still hint at gory details from the original without making
that detail part of the story. eg x points to a painting showing a
scene from the original story, as our interpretation of the story
deviates from the detail of that scene.

On another tact, i was watching Tron, in all its high tech glory, and
wondering, isn't it about time someone did an up to date remake of
Fritz Lang's Metropolis? That story is as valid now, as it ever was,
but who's going to sit down to watch an over long silent movie, to get
at its truth? I can think of a few directors who might do the story
justice, not least the Wachowski brothers. ;)

[FishFood]

Charles E. Hardwidge wrote:
>
> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>

>> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
>> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?


> In simple terms entertainment is about reveals, delight, and pacing.

I was thinking about your answer, and how little i know about
entertainment, except to say i know when i have been entertained.

This idea on the structure of entertainment isn't a bad place to
start a story. What is the simplest story you could tell and
satisfy this idea entertainment?

Imagine a simple story, repeated each time with more and more
details. A simple story repeated each time with the question why.
So that that question became the point of the story. A story on
the depth and mystery of the question - Why?

you might with a simple tale, so simple it seem superficial,
and then expand which retelling of the story, to show how little
one knows, or how even when we think we know it all, we are still
only ever on the surface of the story....

so where to start?

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8jhoh$drs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

There's an easy way of doing the stories with all the gory details uncut and
that's to set them in the far future on an alien world or in an alien
culture.

In any case, the Bacchantes is a 2 or 3 hour long play made up of dialogue
about the back story and the succession to the Theban throne before Pentheus
gets ripped apart limb from limb, including by his own mother for spying on
the women's celebration of the mysteries. If you reduced it to it's bare
essentials (cutting out all the religious stuff) it's about a peeping tom
who gets what he deserves, so a modern adaptation would not be the
Bacchantes but something else. Anyway the only way to do it properly is to
include the entire cycle of Dionysus in full, so you'd be adapting Nonnus,
Dionysia rather than just Euripides, Bacchantes in which case what's wrong
with setting it in the correct historical period of Mycenaean Greece at
around about 1390 BC and making it into an action film about Dionysus
conquest of India/Thrace (rather than having the entire campaign alluded to
in 2 hours of dialough) and his return home demanding that he be recognised
as a god by Pentheus who refuses to do that and thereby suffers his fate?

>
> On another tact, i was watching Tron, in all its high tech glory, and
> wondering, isn't it about time someone did an up to date remake of
> Fritz Lang's Metropolis? That story is as valid now, as it ever was,

Trying to think back to when I watched it. Isn't it essentially a
modernisation of Frankenstein? That's probably why no ones ever remade it.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8js2u$5bh$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Charles E. Hardwidge wrote:
>>
>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>
>
>>> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
>>> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?
>
>
>> In simple terms entertainment is about reveals, delight, and pacing.
>
> I was thinking about your answer, and how little i know about
> entertainment, except to say i know when i have been entertained.
>
> This idea on the structure of entertainment isn't a bad place to
> start a story. What is the simplest story you could tell and
> satisfy this idea entertainment?
>
> Imagine a simple story, repeated each time with more and more

Sounds like the story of Chicken Licken.

> details. A simple story repeated each time with the question why.
> So that that question became the point of the story. A story on
> the depth and mystery of the question - Why?

Didn't George Lucas do that with Star Wars A New Hope followed by Return of
the Jedi which was essentially the same plot. Make sure the pans of the
Death Star are safe in the hands of the resistance so they can plan how to
destroy it and save the galaxy once again. Why?

>
> you might with a simple tale, so simple it seem superficial,
> and then expand which retelling of the story, to show how little
> one knows, or how even when we think we know it all, we are still
> only ever on the surface of the story....
>
> so where to start?

What's was that Star Trek TNG episode which repeated the same day over and
over again with Geordie programming messages into Data which he was somehow
able to remember in the next repetition to enlighten him more about how the
Enterprise blowing up caused the time loop they just discovered they were
in.

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8j4js$pkr$1...@dont-email.me...

> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
> news:b9KdnX0Y8aCzkjDN...@eclipse.net.uk...
>> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:k8ii8c$7jp$1...@dont-email.me...
>>>
>>> So, yeah. Men (or a certain subset of arrogant, backslapping, smug men)
>>> screwed up television. Screwed up society. Screwed up the economy.
>>
>> Not men. Management screwed up television. Management full of PC loonies
>> that don't understand drama and instead of looking at as script they look
>> at a sheet of statistics they don't have a clue about either.
>>
>> Look at who they put in charge of the BBC. Was it someone from
>> entertainment? No, it was a journalist. The BBC has been going down hill
>> ever since Billy Cotton went.
>
> It's interesting you sidestep the male management question and blame
> political correctness. (Careful, grasshopper.)

It's not a problem with the management being male. It's a problem with
management in general and PC lunacy is one of the symptoms.

>
> As an example of dinosaur's versus progressives consider that the impetus
> to
> improve transgender medical treatment in the NHS dived like a Stuka after
> Doctor Russell Reed was bullied, armtwisted, and harassed out of practice.
> The UK is now a full decade behind Holland and even the US and Australia
> have overtaken the UK. A similar pattern is found in entertainment.
>
> As if by magic we may both be right. Maybe a good DG (assuming the good
> old
> boys at the top haven't already filtered out the competition or driven
> them
> underground) will be able to drive necessary change and push out the MBA
> types? Win-win.

Which is why I suggested RTD.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

In article <eNmdnRXc5qOsEjDN...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Today we find out Tony Hall is the new DG.

[Agamemnon]

"The Doctor" <doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:k8l658$h24$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...

They've put another journalist in charge rather than someone that has a clue
about drama. It wasn't just me who didn't get an email advertising the
vacancy. They didn't ask for anyone to apply for the position. Hall was
appointed directly by Patten.

[The Doctor]

In article <lr6dnQgbZrmygzPN...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Chris Patten?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:lr6dnQgbZrmygzPN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> They've put another journalist in charge rather than someone that has a
> clue about drama. It wasn't just me who didn't get an email advertising
> the vacancy. They didn't ask for anyone to apply for the position. Hall
> was appointed directly by Patten.

Thanks. I just read up on that. *groan*

To be honest, I thought Patten could (or should) have been the next to go
but he's been very good at changing the arguments and shifting peoples
attention off himself. His patriarchal appointment of Tom Hall like he's
still governor of Hong Kong is swift and decisive but is it the right
decision? I have my doubts even if Tom Hall goes on to run the BBC in a way
which, by the usual corporate managerial and PR tick boxes, looks successful
on the surface.

I know I've said it before but this is why Ridley Scott left the BBC. He
knew he had a choice between being a robot or having a free hand in his own
creations.

The BBC think they own you and I'm not convinced that will change under the
current regime structures.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

I heard a very interesting take on Metropolis adapted for radio4
by Peter Straughan [the guy who wrote the screenplay for 'Men who
stare at Goats']. His 'industry' of choice for the workers was very
interesting. Directed by Toby Swift, Broadcast March 24, 2006.

"Set in the year 2026, Metropolis takes place in a dystopian society
where wealthy intellectuals rule from vast tower complexes, oppressing
the workers who live in the depths below them."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(film)

I wonder how much lead time would be necessary to have this done for
its centennial?

[FishFood]

The Doctor wrote:
> On 2012-11-21, China Blue Danube <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> In article <k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>>
>
> Is humanity maturing of immaturing?
>

Is humanity more controlled, or less controlled?

Is humanity more free or less?

[The Doctor]

In article <k8labd$jdu$1...@dont-email.me>,

Imagine Jonathan Powell as BBC DG: HORROR!!!

[The Doctor]

Ls with all that Big Brother technology.

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8h8p4$qtg$2...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Agamemnon wrote:
>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

>> news:k8ea1q$8k1$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

>>> Agamemnon wrote:
>>>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

>>>> news:k8bt93$mhi$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

>>>>> On 18/11/12 21:42, Agamemnon wrote:
>>>>>> "FishFood"<do...@home.com> wrote in message

>>>>>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>>>> ..."that what makes people feel good"
>
>>>> Maybe everyone has already been done. The same question was being asked
>>>> in ancient times as well, why was there no great drama after Euripides.
>>>> Why was there no great comedy after Menander. It was the same question
>>>> until the Romans decided to copy it and follow it up. Then the question
>>>> came back again after Terence. And of course the same applied to poetry
>>>> as well. Where were the great epic poets after Eumelus and Alcmaeon.
>>>> You had to wait 600 years until Ovid. Meanwhile their poems were turned
>>>> into plays by the likes of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and
>>>> Apollonius of Rhodes had a go at writing romantic novels based on them,
>>>> which of course begged the question what happened to the Romantic
>>>> novelists after Heliodorus, etc. etc.

>>>>
>>>
>>> Here's a thought, how about dusting down some of those classics
>>> dramatical struggle, and pitching them in California, or New York
>>> or Rome, or dare i say it, within the Beeb itself... Use those
>>> stories about power then, to comment on power now. As they say,
>>> something will never change, the fundamental human psyche is, what
>>> its always been.
>>> one
>>

>> I'm working on something like that, but look at what Hollywood did to the
>> Iliad. They totally turned it upside down by making wife snatcher Paris
>> into the hero and Menelaus whose wife he snatched into the villain and
>> also changing the ending so that Menelaus was killed instead of him
>> getting back his wife and remarrying her because they still loved each
>> other. Why did they do this? Do they think they know better than Homer
>> who has lasted over two and a half thousand years?
>>
>> Look at what the BBC did to Robin Hood by totally turning that upside
>> down too and now they're doing it with Merlin. Look at how they mangled
>> Chaucer and Shakespeare by trying to set them in the modern day.
>>
>> Whoever is responsible for drama has absolutely no understanding of
>> literature and thinks viewers are all idiots who can't appreciate and
>> have no understanding of literature or history either so everything has
>> to be dumbed down to totally ridiculous levels.
>>
>
>
> That said, there was that interesting series of Shakespeare 'comedies'
> from a few years back which i wouldn't mind see being repeated. It is
> possible to breath life into those stories with a modern context and
> do them justice.

I preferred the radio adaptations on Radio 4 one of which stared David
Tennant. All of them were very good.

Don't like Shakespeare being modernised. It doesn't need it and I take it as
being an insult to the original.

[Your Name]

In article <MKidnao45IMBhC3N...@eclipse.net.uk>, "Agamemnon"

<agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
>
> Don't like Shakespeare being modernised. It doesn't need it and I take it as
> being an insult to the original.

Yep, the same with all the idiotic "reboots" / "reimaginings" that are a
current fad, especially when they're so lazy and stupid that they even
re-use the same name. :-(

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:MKidnao45IMBhC3N...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> Don't like Shakespeare being modernised. It doesn't need it and I take it
> as being an insult to the original.

Can't you just imagine the abridged modern Shakespeare adaptation by Ronco?

Yo! Hamlet! How's it going, like?? If you know what I mean, Harry.

Today is the winter of our SPONSORED BY HITACHI discontent.

Who scoffed all the pizza?

D'ya know? You might have a point.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Your Name]

In article <k8p64r$93m$1...@dont-email.me>, "Charles E. Hardwidge"

These days it's likely to be written in TXT-speak, which is almost as
unintelligble as the original Shakespeare Ye Olde English. ;-)

[The Doctor]

In article <MKidnao45IMBhC3N...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Shakespeare modernised is like the KJV 1611 getting modernised.

[¡Gölök Z.L.F Buday AKA The Black Jester AKA The Voltairian]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 23:15:08 -0000, in rec.arts.drwho "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:

Ąhttp://www.shadowlocked.com/201211152800/features/the-new-series-of-doctor-who-fleeing-from-format.html
Ą
Ą<<The New Series has given itself two basic tasks. One, to put back and keep
Ąon our screens a programme by the name of Doctor Who that maintains
Ąsubstantial visible continuity with the classic series in many ways. Two,
Ąand this is where conflicting elements start to come in, to seek to define
Ąthis resurrected programme against many aspects of the classic series, even
Ąfundamental aspects in pursuit of task one.>>
Ą
ĄReading this essay was an exercise in speed reading. I was too young and
Ąnever invested much in Classic Who, and the new series contains so many
Ądreadfuls I don't want my brain to regurgitate anything lurking around my
Ąsubconscious any more than necessary. What I did pick out, and tend to agree
Ąwith, is new Who is trying to please too many people, and in doing so,
Ąfalling short on delivering.

Many on US Netflix, less on Canada, a Classic Set on UK I am watching now: http://www.unblock-us.com/3398.html

Your right, they pull the condescending retooling crap. They try to make it a fan script affair, not a pro-affair and murdered the classic
philosophic comedy.

ĄI was reflecting, earlier, on the fact my media input is almost exclusively
Ącherrypicked American content. The only UK show I've watched recently,
ĄHunted, is so self-consciously serious, with a subtext of snobbery and
Ąsqualor that caused Alistair Cooke to leave the UK, it's painful to watch.
Ą
Ą--
ĄCharles E. Hardwidge
Ą

[FishFood]

>> from a few years back which i wouldn't mind seeing repeated. It is

>> possible to breath life into those stories with a modern context and
>> do them justice.
>
> I preferred the radio adaptations on Radio 4 one of which stared David
> Tennant. All of them were very good.
>
> Don't like Shakespeare being modernised. It doesn't need it and I take it as
> being an insult to the original.
>
>

The 'moderns' isn't about replacing the originals, if anything they can
lead people to the original. If anything they create the kind of context
which would have been obvious to its traditional audience.

Sometimes the actor's strict observance of pentamic meter can get in
the way of following the story. When its badly done, the performance is
simply one where the actor impresses the audience, with his ability to
remember his lines. ;)

IMO the story should come first, then the language, then the actor.
Maybe the point of Shakespeare was to use language to preserve the
story.

[FishFood]

The Doctor wrote:
> In article <b9KdnX0Y8aCzkjDN...@eclipse.net.uk>,
> Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
>> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:k8ii8c$7jp$1...@dont-email.me...
>>> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
>>> news:rJmdnTx91_4aKjHN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>>
>

> doctor Who in early 1990s. Major management screw up!

You think?

Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.

{It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
i wonder if that's still to be the case...}

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qhpj$9ma$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Sometimes the actor's strict observance of pentamic meter can get in
> the way of following the story.

Uh. Laurence Olivier... Zzzzzzz

Mahler's second symphony (?) is played like a death march. The thing is
nobody knows what the original arrangement was. I'm not aware of anyone who
has arranged it to be more upbeat and dynamic but I think it's possible. Why
isn't it done? A stuffy establishment insisting that's how it "should be
played" and/or how it's "always been done"?

I know work by earlier genius is one thing and movie theme tunes are another
but I really, really like good popular entertainment scores. Some pop music
is genius as well. I wonder what they will be making of it in a few
centuries time.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qi9r$b0a$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
> before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
> DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
> culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
> pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.
>
> {It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
> i wonder if that's still to be the case...}

Where has all the great rock and pop music gone? What about great television
shows like The Equalizer? Are creative forces who aren't "picked" by the
powers that be just finding other ways of expression?

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

That implies one step forward.

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8qiu2$bbc$1...@dont-email.me...

> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:k8qi9r$b0a$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>
>> Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
>> before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
>> DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
>> culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
>> pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.
>>
>> {It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
>> i wonder if that's still to be the case...}
>
> Where has all the great rock and pop music gone? What about great
> television

Into the 90s and 00s black hole. Two decades of crap in both genres as far
as UK music is concerned. Whereas I can remember almost everything from the
80s and tons of 70s disco I can hardly remember anything from the 80s and
00s.

Anything that was any good came from the US or from Europe. Brilliant
decades for dance music, but that was nearly all European. British music had
virtually gone extinct, with nothing but manufactured boy bands and girl
groups and talent show creations doing covers mostly.

> shows like The Equalizer? Are creative forces who aren't "picked" by the

That was American.

Clearly today the focus on ITV (have you seen the new logo the vomited up?)
and BBC since the 90s has been solely on British made shows no matter how
crap they are. With nothing to compete with or look up to British TV has
gone further downhill.

> powers that be just finding other ways of expression?

Maybe you can blame it all on 'indie' music, an emperors new clothes genre
if ever there was one. Clueless imbeciles posing as lifestyle gurus and
music pundits telling everyone the 'indie' music is really great when more
or less everyone knows most of it complete talentless amateurish crap that
is more simplistic and derivative than even the worst repetitive pop music.
I'd rather listen to a wedding band. At least they can cover classics by
Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Wham and Culture Club, do a few recent hits by
Adele, Taylor Swift and The Script, and they can all sing better than anyone
on the X Factor.

So 'indie' music is to blame for the lack of good rock and pop music and the
equivalent emperor's new clothes simplistic derivative amateurish talentless
'alternative' crap on TV is to blame for the lack of good comedy and drama.

>
> --
> Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

The Doctor wrote:
> In article <k8qi9r$b0a$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>> The Doctor wrote:
>>> In article <b9KdnX0Y8aCzkjDN...@eclipse.net.uk>,
>>> Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
>>>> "Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>>>> news:k8ii8c$7jp$1...@dont-email.me...
>>>>> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
>>>>> news:rJmdnTx91_4aKjHN...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>> doctor Who in early 1990s. Major management screw up!
>> You think?
>>
>> Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
>> before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
>> DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
>> culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
>> pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.
>>
>> {It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
>> i wonder if that's still to be the case...}
>
> That implies one step forward.

mybad,
what i meant was you 'stand still' to catch your breath
before you slip back another step... ;/

[Agamemnon]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:K9GdnX-Els55ci3N...@eclipse.net.uk...

Here's the point I'm getting at. A wedding band has learned the skill of
playing and performing music and can cover almost anything. When the Beatles
started out they covered Rock and Roll classics for years and Lennon and
McCartney even did Skiffle. What have 'indie' bands ever done skills?
Nothing! They think they can write new music in an instant by ignoring
everything that's gone before, well apart from other 'indie' bands which
makes matter even worse since they don't in fact have a clue about what
makes good music whatsoever. You can say exactly the same thing about the
new wave of street 'rapper'. Everyone on the street now thinks they can rap
and say anything they like. They've not even bothered to learn any skills by
copying their forerunners.

It's just the same with TV. Where have any of our modern script writers
learned their skills? They've not been trained. They've not practiced their
skills by copying the style of their idols. They're not even given the
chance to learn their skills because organisations like the BBC or ITV don't
have any interest in organising teams of writers where everyone is told what
to write and they all get together and improve each others work. It's just
about individuals and it's not about what you know or how good you are at
writing but who you know and how good you are at making the clueless emperor
think that what you've written is in 'fashion', which is nothing more than
the emperor's new clothes scenario all over again.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qhpj$9ma$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

The original can lead people to the original and more like it.

>If anything they create the kind of context
> which would have been obvious to its traditional audience.
>

What do you mean? Copy the style of Shakespeare complete with period
language, characterisation, scene breakdown. Yes, that's exactly what
writers should be doing. Copying the masters so as to learn their skills
before attempting something of their own.

> Sometimes the actor's strict observance of pentamic meter can get in
> the way of following the story. When its badly done, the performance is
> simply one where the actor impresses the audience, with his ability to
> remember his lines. ;)

It get really annoyed if someone doesn't perform the lines exactly the way I
read them.

>
> IMO the story should come first, then the language, then the actor.
> Maybe the point of Shakespeare was to use language to preserve the
> story.

I believe that Shakespeare should be performed in exactly the style
Shakespeare intended his plays to be performed in, otherwise it ruin the
entire experience.

[solar penguin - a concrete concept of abstract foolery]

Agamemnon wrote:

> "solar penguin" <solar....@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:k8ib2h$tud$1...@dont-email.me...
> >
> > Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
> >
> >> "solar penguin" <solar....@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:k8g8lk$96u$1...@dont-email.me...
> >>>
> >>> Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
> >>>
> >> "solar penguin" <solar....@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:k8g8lk$96u$1...@dont-email.me...
> >>>
> >>> Agamemnon <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I think that's probably what the problem is with modern TV drama.
> >>>> It's trying to attract mainly women viewers to please the
> >>>> advertisers by dumping everything down so that it's almost totally
> >>>> devoid of plot and that's putting men off watching it altogether.
> >>>
> >>> Worse than that -- a lot of modern TV drama is the male TV
> >>> executives' idea of what women viewers want, which isn't necessarily
> >>> what they really want.
> >>>
> >>> It goes back to what Charles was saying about the different ways men
> >>> and women view stories. Women tend to want to be slowly drawn into
> >>> the story world, feeling as though they're a part of it. Men tend
> >>> to prefer remaining outside the story world, looking in, especially
> >>> if there's something exciting or interesting to look at.
> >>>
> >>> (Personally I share the women's view completely, while Charles seems
> >>> uniquely balanced halfway between the two. I'm not sure whether
> >>> that's of Zen meditation focussing and balancing his mind, or
> >>> whether it's somehow connected to his interest in transgender issues
> >>> broadening his horizons. Or just because he's a bit eccentric
> >>> anyway.) In the past, a lot of TV drama _had_ to be of the "draws you
> >>> into the
> >>> story world" variety (what you described as being like a stage play)
> >>> simply because the way they were shot and edited, not to mention the
> >>> budgets available, meant it was hard to sustain lots of exciting
> >>> stuff to look at from outside. (Obviously, this was a good thing
> >>> for those of us who like being steadily immersed into the story
> >>> world, even if it wasn't for the rest of you.)
> >>
> >> You might as well put it on radio if you're going to do that.
> >
> > Nowadays I prefer radio drama to new TV drama. Radio still gets it right
> > for me in a way that TV no longer does.
> >
> >>
> >> TV is a dynamic visual medium. It's needs action and movement and an
> >> ever evolving plot.
> >
> > It's certainly a visual medium. But not necessarily a dynamic visual one.
> > It doesn't _need_ action and movement, even if you do just happen to enjoy
> > them.
>
> Of course it does. If there isn't any action or movement then you might as
> well put the production on radio like I said above.

No. Even the visual grammar of a still or hardly-moving picture can
convey detail that would be difficult on the radio.

> This is what the
> Americans learned at and early stage and what British TV and cinema have
> never learned. US drama is mostly based on comic strips. UK drama is mostly
> based on stage plays.
>

That used to be true back in the good old days. But unfortunately
nowadays, the UK is going too far down the path of US-style drama.

> >
> >>
> >>>
> >>> With changes in the way TV was produced, it did eventually become
> >>> practical to produce more and more TV drama that suited the male way
> >>> of viewing, so they did. Trying to draw viewers into the story was
> >>> (and still is) seen as quaint and old-fashioned. Male viewers
> >>> thought TV
> >>
> >> Unfortunaly the 'stage play' TV productions never had much of a story
> >> to begin with.
> >
> > After being so pedantic about the definition of "plot" in the Star Wars
> > bit, above, you're now (deliberately?) getting "plot" and "story" muddled
> > up here. Shame on you.
> >
> > Remember, plots are about things happening. Stories are about evolving
> > relationships and emotional journeys. Ideally, a drama should have both.
> > But if there's only room for one, I prefer it to be the story.
>
> There's no story and no plot either. Nothing happens apart from people
> talking to each other about stuff which is completely pointless to fill time
> and the characters and their relationships are just the same and none the
> wiser at the and as at the beginning. (Act One, Scene 1 of a one act one
> scene stage play. Location. Two people talking at a party.) "Hey did you see
> so and so slipping out with such and such. No I don't know them very well,
> but tell me more. Well I think they've gone upstairs. Oh really." ...blah
> blah blah... Who cares. What have you learned. Absolutely nothing since none
> of these people really exist and you've seen it all before in real life.

What's the problem? Everyone loves listening to gossip at parties.
Don't you?

As Graham Norton once put it: "I love scandal and gossip, aren't you
surprised! But some people do claim not to like terrible behind-back-
type stories, ie scandals. You meet these fellows and you think, 'No
wonder you're never invited to a dinner party, you're too dull!'"

> >> It was nothing but never ending dialogue which was
> >> only there to fill time and was so mind numbingly boring and
> >> uninformative that you couldn't bare to keep watching long enough for
> >> any actual story to be revealed. Take "I Claudius" for example.
> >
> > I loved "I, Clavdivs". Not as good as the books, but still great telly.
> > I'd even say it was better than the recent radio version!
>
> Probably since there's hardly any movement or locations in it.
>

But it was still great, addictive television. That's the point.

Better than the fast-paced, Americanised rubbish that passes for drama
these days.

> >>
> >> Drama is about making you feel good. It's about taking you away from
> >> reality. It's about telling a story in a way which isn't boring. It's
> >> about getting you to ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask and
> >> giving you the answers. It's has to be all of the above not just some.
> >
> > I'd say it can be any combination of those. It doesn't have to be all at
> > once. That's overkill.
>
> It has to be all the above. You can't pick and mix.
>

Of course you can. That's what dramatists have been doing for
centuries.

> >
> > e.g. It can about confronting reality, not just getting you away from it.
> > It can ask questions, but leave you to supply your own answers.
> >
>
> If it leaves you having to supply your own answers then it's taught you
> nothing, and has probably resulted in pissing you off after having wasted
> one and a half hours watching it.

It's taught you nothing, so would be useless as one of those
educational programmes for schools. Oh, wait. They don't do those
any more. That's OK then. Problem solved.

Oh, and wait again. By getting you to ask questions, it _has_ taught
you that those questions exist, and that not every question has an
answer yet. That's a very important lesson. Much more important than
Wordy singing about silent E.

>
> If you want to confront reality then try satire.
>

Who says drama and satire are mutually exclusive?

> >>
> >> Stage plays don't fit the bill because they're slow, boring and
> >> usually about ordinary daily life.
> >
> > Yet elsewhere in this thread you seem in favour of doing non-modernised,
> > non-updated versions of the comedies of Aristophanes and things like that.
>
> Aristophanes does not need modernising or updating and I wouldn't classify
> it as a stage play since it's completely dynamic as is Shakespeare.

The fact that they're plays performed on a stage doesn't make them
stage plays...!?!

Do you really want me to bring back that list...???

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qru6$2bb$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

You mean one step forward and two steps back. Didn't Paula Abdul do a song
about that with an animated cat?

[FishFood]

/<rant mode on>/

It use to be that talent defined success. Talent attracted the
best, the best songs the best writers. Now the pool from which
we select our talents seems show how limited. Who looks to
give the little guy a break, when you can manufacture success
in the studio, based on borrowed/generic idea of production
values.

Also continuity use to play a part in the market - something old
something new, something borrowed etc, now our market encourages
a fractured idea of culture, each in his own bubble of time, with
advertising seemingly driving that imperative.

Pop music used to be shared in plain view for all to hear, or
decry. Now its almost back the ghetto as the music is predefined
then segregated to its niech domain.

Music as a unifying force, was often about a favorable impression
of the poor, shared with the masses. Music reflected the strength
of the poor, it was psychology to empower the poor, which we all
borrowed from without recognizing it. Then the music changed.
Around the time of the early 90's we had the mili vanili scandle,
manufactured glitz at its emasculated, before the music got real.

Real meant the grim prospect of Rap, not just any rap, but gangster
rap, which was promoted over and above its alternatives by the execs,
lord knows under what directive - butch up?

I had the idea back then of a yin yang kind of relation in terms
of its effect on the culture. Yin to promote its opposing Yang.
Where before the music unified, or bridge a gulf, this kind of
music did the opposite. The absence of mainstream alternatives,
made it appear popular. That's not to say there weren't songs
with lyrics you could follow, and singers who could actually sing,
its just that in certain quarters their example was very thin on
the ground. Call me old fashion.

These days if you want to climb that first rung, you have to
comply and be apart of the program. You have to be heard singing
what others look to see shared, anything for a buck. You don't
really need talent under such a system, if anything talent is
feared where it might succeed in defiance of the program.

/<rant mode off>/

You might as well ask about the place for art in a scientifically
deterministic society. Should Art fit a mechanistic system, and if
so would it still be art? Should art fit within the box, or escape
that box?

[FishFood]

I say the form was invited in its day to stimulate, and if it no longer
succeeds as such, then it needs to be shaken. Its very likely this music
existed as a contrast to other forms, which no longer exist to complete
that form. Or we've assimulated so much of this form that it can't be
felt in the way that it was felt when it was created. The question is
how to again 'hear' the music?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:foSdnWqORvIqai3N...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> What do you mean? Copy the style of Shakespeare complete with period
> language, characterisation, scene breakdown. Yes, that's exactly what
> writers should be doing. Copying the masters so as to learn their skills
> before attempting something of their own.

Artists do copy the great masters like Holbein et al but after then if
they're masters themselves they throw them away and do their own thing. This
is like knowing nothing, learning the rules, then knowing nothing again.

What I can't stand is patronising dicks who learn establishment favourites
then ram that down everyone else's nose and complain when anyone else does
anything different. That's not art and it's disrespectful to the audience
who may, from time to time, actually have a better understanding and taste
than the self-styled auteur/professional/managerialist. I really hate people
like that especially people who who haven't got anything other than a rote
learned qualifications and office politics to back them up.

I found Shakespeare hideously boring at school but at home read everything I
could in non-fiction and fiction including Fleming and comic books. I think
that means I can get both "great art" and popular arts. I can appreciate
both including seeing how "great art" can be no more than pseudo
intellectual masturbation for thickies and how popular art can be skilfully
produced and contain great insights. I still find Shakepeare hideously
boring and start slipping into a coma at the ritual mention of Shakepeare or
yet another adaptation with emerging talents dad dancing delivery and timing
like they're producing a unique spin that stops the traffic, has old men
rest against lamposts at the self-evident greatness, and mothers swoon and
babies cry.

Returning to the initial point and following on in the Zen tradition some
would say "something is what it is". That's it, and I'm slightly puzzled why
some people find it so hard to understand.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qugf$9ka$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

That's a possibility... Without getting bogged down in politics and
everything the idea of learning to hear the music again is a good thought.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[Agamemnon]

"solar penguin - a concrete concept of abstract foolery"
<solar....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:53c6cc4a-3df0-40f6...@d3g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...

What? You mean silence, dead air? Same thing.

>
>> This is what the
>> Americans learned at and early stage and what British TV and cinema have
>> never learned. US drama is mostly based on comic strips. UK drama is
>> mostly
>> based on stage plays.
>>
>
> That used to be true back in the good old days. But unfortunately
> nowadays, the UK is going too far down the path of US-style drama.
>

You mean trying to, but it's not doing it properly. In last week's Merlin
they even sat down for a cup of tea! Tea in Arthurian times? We didn't know
of the stuff until the British Empire conquered India.

That's about real people. I don't want to hear gossip about people who are
not real and whose gossip makes no difference to me.

>
> As Graham Norton once put it: "I love scandal and gossip, aren't you
> surprised! But some people do claim not to like terrible behind-back-

Right. So in Star Wars: Episode 7, Luke Skywalker is going to tell Princess
Leia that he's been hearing rumours that Han Solo is having an affair with
one of Jabba The Hut's former dancing girls and this could seriously affect
the balance in the Force if something isn't done about it prompto? Not...!

> type stories, ie scandals. You meet these fellows and you think, 'No
> wonder you're never invited to a dinner party, you're too dull!'"
>
>> >> It was nothing but never ending dialogue which was
>> >> only there to fill time and was so mind numbingly boring and
>> >> uninformative that you couldn't bare to keep watching long enough for
>> >> any actual story to be revealed. Take "I Claudius" for example.
>> >
>> > I loved "I, Clavdivs". Not as good as the books, but still great
>> > telly.
>> > I'd even say it was better than the recent radio version!
>>
>> Probably since there's hardly any movement or locations in it.
>>
>
> But it was still great, addictive television. That's the point.
>

No. The production values were terrible.

> Better than the fast-paced, Americanised rubbish that passes for drama
> these days.

If it was being done today I'm sure some clueless prick would have made sure
that everyone was sat around the dinner table dinking hot cups of tea poured
from a tea pot into china cups.

>
>> >>
>> >> Drama is about making you feel good. It's about taking you away from
>> >> reality. It's about telling a story in a way which isn't boring. It's
>> >> about getting you to ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask and
>> >> giving you the answers. It's has to be all of the above not just some.
>> >
>> > I'd say it can be any combination of those. It doesn't have to be all
>> > at
>> > once. That's overkill.
>>
>> It has to be all the above. You can't pick and mix.
>>
>
> Of course you can. That's what dramatists have been doing for
> centuries.

Nope. It has to be all not just some for it to be good drama.

>
>> >
>> > e.g. It can about confronting reality, not just getting you away from
>> > it.
>> > It can ask questions, but leave you to supply your own answers.
>> >
>>
>> If it leaves you having to supply your own answers then it's taught you
>> nothing, and has probably resulted in pissing you off after having wasted
>> one and a half hours watching it.
>
> It's taught you nothing, so would be useless as one of those
> educational programmes for schools. Oh, wait. They don't do those
> any more. That's OK then. Problem solved.

No.

>
> Oh, and wait again. By getting you to ask questions, it _has_ taught
> you that those questions exist, and that not every question has an

What it has actually done is totally pissed you off and taught you that the
writer doesn't know the answers to the questions he's writing about so
what's the point of bothering to watch any more of his work when you could
probably write a better script and answer those questions yourself in stead
of leaving everyone in the lurch.

> answer yet. That's a very important lesson. Much more important than
> Wordy singing about silent E.
>
>>
>> If you want to confront reality then try satire.
>>
>
> Who says drama and satire are mutually exclusive?
>

As I explained above. Drama is about taking you away from the troubles of
the real world. Satire is about laughing them off. The think they have in
common is that both are there to make you feel good. If they don't then
there is not reason for them to exist.

>> >>
>> >> Stage plays don't fit the bill because they're slow, boring and
>> >> usually about ordinary daily life.
>> >
>> > Yet elsewhere in this thread you seem in favour of doing
>> > non-modernised,
>> > non-updated versions of the comedies of Aristophanes and things like
>> > that.
>>
>> Aristophanes does not need modernising or updating and I wouldn't
>> classify
>> it as a stage play since it's completely dynamic as is Shakespeare.
>
> The fact that they're plays performed on a stage doesn't make them
> stage plays...!?!
>
> Do you really want me to bring back that list...???

Do you want me to remind you of my definition of what I mean by a modern
stage play and the one which has been used throughout this discussion as the
sole point of reference.

It's obvious you would never make a good lawyer or a scientist since you
obviously have problems understanding the use of definitions.

By a stage play I am referring to a typical Victorian stage production (and
anything derivative) which consists mainly of people talking to each other
about domestics around a dinner table or in the kitchen, without much action
or dynamism happening if any at all.

Aristophanes is completely dynamic. He moves from scene to scene, subject to
subject, idea to idea and location to location like a modern drama. That
same goes to other comic writers such as Menander, Terence and Plautus. It's
that type of intimate drama that modern movies and television are based on
rather than the kind of plays that Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote.

Aristophanes work can be performed today in exactly the same way as it was
performed when Aristophanes wrote it, because he wrote in the modern
vernacular of everyday speech. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides writing
was always stylised as is Shakespeare's, even his comedies. They were
written to be performed at you, so you could hear them at the back of the
theatre, the performance style was not intimate with the individual viewer
but was in the style of performing to onlookers, which is why they can't and
shouldn't be performed in the style of modern TV and the cinema. If you want
to modernise Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare then it has to
be in the form of a complete rewrite. Nobody talks in soliloquies.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8qu2n$8bb$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Charles E. Hardwidge wrote:
>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
>> news:k8qi9r$b0a$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>
>>> Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
>>> before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
>>> DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
>>> culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
>>> pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.
>>>
>>> {It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
>>> i wonder if that's still to be the case...}
>>
>> Where has all the great rock and pop music gone? What about great
>> television shows like The Equalizer? Are creative forces who aren't
>> "picked" by the powers that be just finding other ways of expression?
>>
>
> /<rant mode on>/
>
> It use to be that talent defined success. Talent attracted the
> best, the best songs the best writers. Now the pool from which
> we select our talents seems show how limited. Who looks to
> give the little guy a break, when you can manufacture success
> in the studio, based on borrowed/generic idea of production
> values.
>

There used to be a day when you could form a band and if your were good and
popular and could write your own songs you'd get a record deal.

Then people realised that they could make more money from selling records as
an individual artist and all the existing bands broke up and if you had
talent as a singer then you'd go it alone and just pay session musicians a
fixed fee rather than give them a share of the royalties. In the same manner
those who could produce played and recorded all the instruments themselves
and paid a session singer a fixed fee so they could keep all the royalties
for themselves.

So music became about selling records and not about performing live or
actually having any ability to sing or play or even write songs.

Gradually, thanks to torrents and sites like the Pirate Bay, musicians are
realising that the only way they can make money now is by perfuming live.

> Also continuity use to play a part in the market - something old
> something new, something borrowed etc, now our market encourages
> a fractured idea of culture, each in his own bubble of time, with
> advertising seemingly driving that imperative.

Yes. That's another reason. Instead of following popular tradition and
gradually improving and advancing their skills modern 'indie' performers
have totally rejected everything that's come before them and have started
from scratch knowing absolutely nothing.

>
> Pop music used to be shared in plain view for all to hear, or
> decry. Now its almost back the ghetto as the music is predefined
> then segregated to its niech domain.

Yes. It all down to the 'indie' artists and rappers and dubstep advocates
trying to convince everyone that you can't be cool and listen to popular
music. It's like the tailors of invisible clothing convincing the emperor
(read management) that the invisible set of clothes they're going to make
him are all the rage and only an idiot would think they're invisible.

>
> Music as a unifying force, was often about a favorable impression
> of the poor, shared with the masses. Music reflected the strength
> of the poor, it was psychology to empower the poor, which we all

Pop music was always about love and relationships and having a good time.
You are thinking of Blues which was about the suffering of the poor and
oppressed masses.

> borrowed from without recognizing it. Then the music changed.
> Around the time of the early 90's we had the mili vanili scandle,
> manufactured glitz at its emasculated, before the music got real.
>
> Real meant the grim prospect of Rap, not just any rap, but gangster
> rap, which was promoted over and above its alternatives by the execs,
> lord knows under what directive - butch up?

Under the Emperor's New Clothes directive. As soon as the morons running the
record companies and magazine pundits started promoting (c)rap (and we'll
add 'indie' music too), record sales dived, and this began in the early 90s
long before CDs could be ripped and mp3s, and even in the early to mid 00s
the massive drop in sales cannot possible be attributed to illegal copying
since there was no widely available high speed broadband available to
distribute the stuff. It was on the same scale as copying the music you like
onto tape, so illegal downloads cannot take any of the blame for the fall in
records sales today either since it was already happening long before.

>
> I had the idea back then of a yin yang kind of relation in terms
> of its effect on the culture. Yin to promote its opposing Yang.
> Where before the music unified, or bridge a gulf, this kind of
> music did the opposite. The absence of mainstream alternatives,
> made it appear popular. That's not to say there weren't songs
> with lyrics you could follow, and singers who could actually sing,
> its just that in certain quarters their example was very thin on
> the ground. Call me old fashion.

Top of the Pops was so full of (c)rap rather than decent pop music that it
was impossible to watch it anymore. The only decent music produced
throughout that era was electronic Dance music.

>
> These days if you want to climb that first rung, you have to
> comply and be apart of the program. You have to be heard singing
> what others look to see shared, anything for a buck. You don't
> really need talent under such a system, if anything talent is
> feared where it might succeed in defiance of the program.
>

The problem is where are people to be heard singing? There's no bands being
formed anymore that perform popular music to learn their skills anymore like
all the early bands had to up until the 90s. All there is are 'indie' bands
and artists who can't play, can't sing, can't write, and just basically hate
everything that's popular because they don't have the talent to be popular
themselves.

> /<rant mode off>/
>
> You might as well ask about the place for art in a scientifically
> deterministic society. Should Art fit a mechanistic system, and if
> so would it still be art? Should art fit within the box, or escape
> that box?

Now, that brings up the whole question of what should actually be called
art?

Some pickled cow sliced in half suspended in a vat of formaldehyde? The
London 2012 Olympic Games logo?

The first is not art. It's crap. The second is not art. It's design, and
it's crap also.

Both are instances of the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome at it's very worst.
Morons are put in charge of everything who don't have a clue about anything
and like the emperor are only interested in who can give them the most
flattery and are so stupid that they ignore the obvious and even what their
own eyes are telling them.

It's time for people to speak up. If you think it's crap then it's crap.
It's as simple as that.

Modern are is CRAP! Say it. Indie music is CRAP! Say it. Gangster rap is
CRAP! Say it.

See it's not difficult and this way we will start to encourage art which is
good to emerge.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:6LqdnRoha65wjCzN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> Now, that brings up the whole question of what should actually be called
> art?
>
> Some pickled cow sliced in half suspended in a vat of formaldehyde? The
> London 2012 Olympic Games logo?
>
> The first is not art. It's crap. The second is not art. It's design, and
> it's crap also.
>
> Both are instances of the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome at it's very
> worst. Morons are put in charge of everything who don't have a clue about
> anything and like the emperor are only interested in who can give them the
> most flattery and are so stupid that they ignore the obvious and even what
> their own eyes are telling them.
>
> It's time for people to speak up. If you think it's crap then it's crap.
> It's as simple as that.
>
> Modern are is CRAP! Say it. Indie music is CRAP! Say it. Gangster rap is
> CRAP! Say it.
>
> See it's not difficult and this way we will start to encourage art which
> is good to emerge.

I appreciate more nuanced discussions than yours unless you want to get into
what is a discussion versus a one sided rant (aka crap) which I don't find
much fun even if you do.

Irony is the fifth fundamental force, grasshopper.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[The Doctor]

Didn't you mean to say 2 steps backwards for every step forward?

[The Doctor]

In article <--qdnTmF1ro5Zy3Nn...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Opposties attracted with Paula ADoll!

[Agamemnon]

"Charles E. Hardwidge" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message

news:k8qus6$gh1$1...@dont-email.me...

>
> "Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
> news:foSdnWqORvIqai3N...@eclipse.net.uk...
>>
>> What do you mean? Copy the style of Shakespeare complete with period
>> language, characterisation, scene breakdown. Yes, that's exactly what
>> writers should be doing. Copying the masters so as to learn their skills
>> before attempting something of their own.
>
> Artists do copy the great masters like Holbein et al but after then if
> they're masters themselves they throw them away and do their own thing.
> This
> is like knowing nothing, learning the rules, then knowing nothing again.

It's like knowing nothing, learning the rules and then adding something of
your own which makes it better.

Unfortunately 'modern artists' started off knowing nothing, have learned
nothing, and have added nothing to improve on the masters. Instead they've
collectively decided to take the piss out of art altogether and take us all
for fools. It the emperor's new clothes syndrome in full flow. Only an idiot
would think that a bucket full of shit is crap. To people with learning it's
the pinnacle of artistic culture.

Now I've put 'modern artists' in inverted commas to distinguish them from
other artists of modern times who do actually know how to create real art.
This artists usually work creating backdrops for movies and TV productions
and the snobbery of the already brainwashed 'art' critics is preventing
their work from getting the praise it deserves. It's time that things
changed and real artists were citied as examples to others instead and given
praise and 'modern artists' given the derision they deserver.

'Modern Art', I piss on it. The Turner Prize, I shit on it. Oh dear. I've
just fallen into their trap and made them more valuable and sought after
than they ever were before. Should listen to Yoda.

>
> What I can't stand is patronising dicks who learn establishment favourites
> then ram that down everyone else's nose and complain when anyone else does
> anything different. That's not art and it's disrespectful to the audience

Watching The X Factor has helped me realise what makes a good artist.

There are two kinds of people who learn the establishment favourites.
There's the kind you mention that want to ram then down peoples throats and
tell everyone that everything else is complete a utter crap and they
shouldn't be listening to pop music or specific artists. Then there's the
other kind who learn the establishment favourites but along with them learn
every favourites as well, because they know that music is about entertaining
people and giving as many people as possible exactly what they want.

And like I said, watching The X Factor you see the artists being tested by
being given lots of different music genres to perform not just one style.

The best artists are the ones who can perform well in all kinds of genres,
not just R&B and that alone, not just Soul and that alone, not just Dance
and that alone, not just Rock and that alone, not just ballads and only
ballads, not just rap and only rap. Everything.

Unfortunately with The Voice it was effectively just one genera, easy
listening, and has anyone ever heard of any of the contestants on that show
since it ended?

> who may, from time to time, actually have a better understanding and taste
> than the self-styled auteur/professional/managerialist. I really hate
> people
> like that especially people who who haven't got anything other than a rote
> learned qualifications and office politics to back them up.
>
> I found Shakespeare hideously boring at school but at home read everything
> I

That's because schools ruin literature by making you have to learn it the
way they want it to be learned.

> could in non-fiction and fiction including Fleming and comic books. I
> think
> that means I can get both "great art" and popular arts. I can appreciate
> both including seeing how "great art" can be no more than pseudo

All truly great art in the past was popular art, otherwise enough copies
wouldn't have survived for us to know about it today.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

news:fN-dnYj2mLpJ2izN...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> That's because schools ruin literature by making you have to learn it the
> way they want it to be learned.

Please snip text in the way it is meant to be snipped. Tah.

Irony is the fifth fundamental force, yaddah, yaddah...

--
Charles E. Hardwidge

[FishFood]

Agamemnon wrote:
> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
> news:k8qu2n$8bb$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>> Charles E. Hardwidge wrote:
>>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message
>>> news:k8qi9r$b0a$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>>
>>>> Culture these days is about control. Control comes almost
>>>> before entertainment or education. So consider the likes of
>>>> DW back then, and the direction which few would suspect for
>>>> culture. I say management knew what it was doing when it
>>>> pulled the strings which drove DW into oblivion.
>>>>
>>>> {It use to be one step back for every two steps forward,
>>>> i wonder if that's still to be the case...}
>>> Where has all the great rock and pop music gone? What about great
>>> television shows like The Equalizer? Are creative forces who aren't
>>> "picked" by the powers that be just finding other ways of expression?
>>>
>> /<rant mode on>/
>>
>> It use to be that talent defined success. Talent attracted the
>> best, the best songs the best writers. Now the pool from which

>> we select our talents seems some how limited. Who looks to

Maybe poor was the wrong choice of category. Yes music at its best is
about love, as statements for individuals to share, or as an idea about
society and its unity. The blues was part of that, the same with RnB,
and even rock n roll. Yes it was about having a good time, even in
adversity, dancing not just marching in step.. Then you have what i
can only call a 'fuck you' message to the music, or a don't mess with
me attitude driven bombasity, which in its own way might create
strength for those who sing/rap that message, but has the opposite
effect on the society made to share that message. Songs are like
philosophies, their ways to see the world, ways to understand your
place in the world, they are packages to aid your particular psychology,
or whats deemed necessary to exist. They can also be limited or
selective with their perspective.

>
>> borrowed from without recognizing it. Then the music changed.
>> Around the time of the early 90's we had the mili vanili scandle,
>> manufactured glitz at its emasculated, before the music got real.
>>
>> Real meant the grim prospect of Rap, not just any rap, but gangster
>> rap, which was promoted over and above its alternatives by the execs,
>> lord knows under what directive - butch up?
>
> Under the Emperor's New Clothes directive. As soon as the morons running the
> record companies and magazine pundits started promoting (c)rap (and we'll
> add 'indie' music too), record sales dived, and this began in the early 90s
> long before CDs could be ripped and mp3s, and even in the early to mid 00s
> the massive drop in sales cannot possible be attributed to illegal copying
> since there was no widely available high speed broadband available to
> distribute the stuff. It was on the same scale as copying the music you like
> onto tape, so illegal downloads cannot take any of the blame for the fall in
> records sales today either since it was already happening long before.
>

I think there was also a rejection of the formula, as not relevant to
the latest epitomies. At those times, people want answers, or whatever
might serve honestly as answers. Music when its no serving in the name
of ideology, is also about making sense of life, in that sense it
creates common language. Of course you don't always need words to manage
thought. The tone and rythmn of music over time becomes universal in its
effects upon our psychology. Some music reflects the battle field, or
reflects urban noise, and so its familiarity as music can prepare
you for either or both. This is my opinion on the late 19th, early
20th century changes to music, and aspects of modern popular music.
Music as a riot of sounds to aid your adaption to the noises of
modernity. Other kinds of music reflect what i'd call the anti-march.
Sycopated rythmns, to use the old language of jazz, which was better
understood when it was in contrast to the march dances of the old world.
Quantized techno can feel like this sometimes, and so when dubstep
happened i saw it/heard it as a reaction to the metronome of the
computer, umaneyesing the manchines we've become, much like jazz
or regga.

>
>> These days if you want to climb that first rung, you have to
>> comply and be apart of the program. You have to be heard singing
>> what others look to see shared, anything for a buck. You don't
>> really need talent under such a system, if anything talent is
>> feared where it might succeed in defiance of the program.
>>
>
> The problem is where are people to be heard singing? There's no bands being
> formed anymore that perform popular music to learn their skills anymore like
> all the early bands had to up until the 90s. All there is are 'indie' bands
> and artists who can't play, can't sing, can't write, and just basically hate
> everything that's popular because they don't have the talent to be popular
> themselves.

Maybe the execs will look again to the churches for its singers,
assuming anyone in our brave new modernity can still afford to believe.

>> /<rant mode off>/
>>
>> You might as well ask about the place for art in a scientifically
>> deterministic society. Should Art fit a mechanistic system, and if
>> so would it still be art? Should art fit within the box, or escape
>> that box?
>
> Now, that brings up the whole question of what should actually be called
> art?
>
> Some pickled cow sliced in half suspended in a vat of formaldehyde? The
> London 2012 Olympic Games logo?
>
> The first is not art. It's crap. The second is not art. It's design, and
> it's crap also.

Its Art as ideology, with formaldehyde carcasses to prepare the mind for
the mormid, ditto diamond encrusted skulls as statement on its greedy
times. Art as servant to Psychology?

The Olympic games logo i eventually got, as a less than obvious way to
represent that date -> 2012. No, real Art is to be found with the likes
of Picasso, who whilst trying to create a new language for perception,
still managed to represent his times with honest reactions, eg guernica.

>
> Both are instances of the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome at it's very worst.
> Morons are put in charge of everything who don't have a clue about anything
> and like the emperor are only interested in who can give them the most
> flattery and are so stupid that they ignore the obvious and even what their
> own eyes are telling them.

Our Social engineers following scripts without deviation, like machines
with computer programs, interpreting those scripts with no thought for
the source of those scripts, with no thought for how unlike the machines
we are. Its called science, apparently. A Sicence of controlled
controllers controlling. For Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, See B.F
Skinner's 'Beyond Freedom & Dignity' - [paraphrasing Nietzsche], with
its proposal of systematic behavior modification to control society.
Of course control on this level didn't start with Skinner.. and is in
fact hinted at by Nietzsche 'Beyond Good and Evil' as an 1860's witness
of the future of modernity.

[FishFood]

maybe i do and don't yet know it... where's the doc when u need em?

[FishFood]

The Doctor wrote:

> In article <k8ltfl$tfm$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>> The Doctor wrote:

>>> On 2012-11-21, China Blue Danube <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> In article <k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>> Is humanity maturing of immaturing?
>>>
>> Is humanity more controlled, or less controlled?
>>
>> Is humanity more free or less?
>
> Ls with all that Big Brother technology.

Paradox: we follow the technology with an expectation it
must be infallible. The fact that the technology is created
by man, who is not infallible is secondary in our thoughts.
It appears to work well enough most of the time and it is
therefore assumed to work perfectly all the time. You could
say as long there is no feedback on its failings it must
work perfectly. Of course without feedback it can't improve.

The question is what is man in this relationship to his
technology? Is he its master or its slave. If he can't
see the limits of his technology, if he doesn't know
enough to question when it errors, what is he? If he is
in no position to improve the machine and can only accept
and be used by it, what is he really?

Big brother or little brother, master or another kind of slave?

[FishFood]

Agamemnon wrote:
> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

> news:k8js2u$5bh$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

>> Charles E. Hardwidge wrote:
>>> "FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

>>> news:k8bfjg$mbs$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>>>
>>>> But back to that core question, before the money, and the apparent
>>>> need have the biggest audience, what is entertainment for?
>>
>>> In simple terms entertainment is about reveals, delight, and pacing.
>> I was thinking about your answer, and how little i know about
>> entertainment, except to say i know when i have been entertained.
>>
>> This idea on the structure of entertainment isn't a bad place to
>> start a story. What is the simplest story you could tell and
>> satisfy this idea entertainment?
>>
>> Imagine a simple story, repeated each time with more and more
>
> Sounds like the story of Chicken Licken.
>
>> details. A simple story repeated each time with the question why.
>> So that that question became the point of the story. A story on
>> the depth and mystery of the question - Why?
>
> Didn't George Lucas do that with Star Wars A New Hope followed by Return of
> the Jedi which was essentially the same plot. Make sure the pans of the
> Death Star are safe in the hands of the resistance so they can plan how to
> destroy it and save the galaxy once again. Why?
>
>> you might with a simple tale, so simple it seem superficial,
>> and then expand which retelling of the story, to show how little
>> one knows, or how even when we think we know it all, we are still
>> only ever on the surface of the story....
>>
>> so where to start?
>
> What's was that Star Trek TNG episode which repeated the same day over and
> over again with Geordie programming messages into Data which he was somehow
> able to remember in the next repetition to enlighten him more about how the
> Enterprise blowing up caused the time loop they just discovered they were
> in.
>

SG-1 had a similar story, where one of the commanders was trapped in a
simulation, each time it repeated the story would elaborate on the loop
and his attempts to escape it.

'GroundHog Day' is my favorite for this device, but there's the more
recent 'Source Code' which i also enjoyed.

[The Doctor]

You got the idea.

[FishFood]

The Doctor wrote:
> In article <k8svhs$lr7$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>> The Doctor wrote:
>>> In article <k8ltfl$tfm$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>>>> The Doctor wrote:
>>>>> On 2012-11-21, China Blue Danube <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> In article <k8h8ad$q8e$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, FishFood <do...@home.com> wrote:
>>>>>>

>>>>> Is humanity maturing or immaturing?

>>>>>
>>>> Is humanity more controlled, or less controlled?
>>>>
>>>> Is humanity more free or less?
>>> Ls with all that Big Brother technology.
>>
>> Paradox: we follow the technology with an expectation it
>> must be infallible. The fact that the technology is created
>> by man, who is not infallible is secondary in our thoughts.
>> It appears to work well enough most of the time and it is
>> therefore assumed to work perfectly all the time. You could
>> say as long there is no feedback on its failings it must
>> work perfectly. Of course without feedback it can't improve.
>>
>> The question is what is man in this relationship to his
>> technology? Is he its master or its slave. If he can't
>> see the limits of his technology, if he doesn't know
>> enough to question when it errors, what is he? If he is
>> in no position to improve the machine and can only accept
>> and be used by it, what is he really?
>>
>> Big brother or little brother, master or another kind of slave?
>
> You got the idea.

That's only because i'm living with the idea... ;)

There's something about the old script/program which was
very probably a match for yesterday's technology, which
is now applied out of habit to today's technology by the
latest, who can't see this aspect of time, let alone its
obsolescence as a script. These old scripts are always
new to the latest...

[The Doctor]

Now write it in C for mobile applications.

[FishFood]

Yep... or there's that line in Transformers

Agent Simmons: [looks at a Nokia phone] Ooh. Nokias are real nasty.
You've gotta respect the Japanese. They know the way of the samurai...

[The Doctor]

Nokia is Finnish.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8st3k$fu6$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

The basic progression is as follows.

Blues gave rise to Jazz which gave rise to Funk and Soul together often
called R&B which gave rise to Contemporary R&B.

Blues also gave rise to Rock n Roll which split apart to give rise to Pop,
Rock and Motown.

Motown gave rise to Disco and Disco gave rise to various genres of
Electronic Dance Music (EDM) including Electro and Electro gave rise to
House.

Rock hasn't really given rise to anything except other forms of Rock and
'indie' music.

>Then you have what i
> can only call a 'fuck you' message to the music, or a don't mess with
> me attitude driven bombasity, which in its own way might create
> strength for those who sing/rap that message, but has the opposite effect
> on the society made to share that message. Songs are like

This is totally negative music and I refuse to play it. Why should I and why
should anyone when there's plenty of positive rap around.

Well this applied to classical music and it totally and utterly destroyed it
as a popular genre. The shift from romantic to modern classical music began
at the time of WW1 when composers decided they were going to reflect the
sounds on the battle field but instead of portraying it with marches they
made everything dissonant to sound like weapons firing and then later on the
tried to emulate the sound of traffic jams and car horns beeping at random
and machinery turning and grinding to portray life in modern cities. Dubstep
is a continuation of that. It's basically people playing space invaders over
the music and it originated from Reggae disk jockeys playing samples from
space invaders games and science fiction shows and movies over the music and
then UK Garage artists started copying it with even more primitive sound
effects influenced by the early Doctor Who soundtracks created by the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop.

>Other kinds of music reflect what i'd call the anti-march. Sycopated
>rythmns, to use the old language of jazz, which was better understood when
>it was in contrast to the march dances of the old world. Quantized techno
>can feel like this sometimes, and so when dubstep happened i saw it/heard
>it as a reaction to the metronome of the computer, umaneyesing the
>manchines we've become, much like jazz
> or regga.

Jazz came about at the same time as 'Modern' classical music and is
basically a combination of that and traditional Blues music from eastern and
southern Europe and the middle east and Ottoman empire which was played on
the 'flute' which was the forerunner to the clarinet, and which also gave
rise to Western Blues (via combination with French traditional music which
had earlier given rise to Country when it was combined with Irish
traditional music, and Gospel).

>
>>
>>> These days if you want to climb that first rung, you have to
>>> comply and be apart of the program. You have to be heard singing
>>> what others look to see shared, anything for a buck. You don't
>>> really need talent under such a system, if anything talent is
>>> feared where it might succeed in defiance of the program.
>>>
>>
>> The problem is where are people to be heard singing? There's no bands
>> being formed anymore that perform popular music to learn their skills
>> anymore like all the early bands had to up until the 90s. All there is
>> are 'indie' bands and artists who can't play, can't sing, can't write,
>> and just basically hate everything that's popular because they don't have
>> the talent to be popular themselves.
>
> Maybe the execs will look again to the churches for its singers, assuming
> anyone in our brave new modernity can still afford to believe.
>

They more or less tried that on The Voice. It flopped. You're not going to
find a pop singer very easily by just looking at singers who can only do
gospel.

>
>>> /<rant mode off>/
>>>
>>> You might as well ask about the place for art in a scientifically
>>> deterministic society. Should Art fit a mechanistic system, and if
>>> so would it still be art? Should art fit within the box, or escape
>>> that box?
>>
>> Now, that brings up the whole question of what should actually be called
>> art?
>>
>> Some pickled cow sliced in half suspended in a vat of formaldehyde? The
>> London 2012 Olympic Games logo?
>>
>> The first is not art. It's crap. The second is not art. It's design, and
>> it's crap also.
>
> Its Art as ideology, with formaldehyde carcasses to prepare the mind for
> the mormid, ditto diamond encrusted skulls as statement on its greedy
> times. Art as servant to Psychology?
>
> The Olympic games logo i eventually got, as a less than obvious way to
> represent that date -> 2012.

20
12 was completely stupid and just looked like a splat. Even worse was the
design on the back of the medals which considered of the splat and a load of
cracks radiating from the centre of it.

Why didn't they do something which represented the UK instead like every
other country has done with it's medal designs and logs?

>No, real Art is to be found with the likes of Picasso, who whilst trying to
>create a new language for perception,
> still managed to represent his times with honest reactions, eg guernica.
>

Nope. Picasso is just another example of Emperor's New Clothes syndrome.
There were far better artists in the 20th century drawing cartoons for Walt
Disney and in DC Comics and Marvel etc. who are far more representative of
popular 20th century culture. It's time they got the credit they deserve.
You can add modern computer graphics artists too and the people painting
theatrical back drop curtains and custom car paintjobs.

>
>>
>> Both are instances of the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome at it's very
>> worst. Morons are put in charge of everything who don't have a clue about
>> anything and like the emperor are only interested in who can give them
>> the most flattery and are so stupid that they ignore the obvious and even
>> what their own eyes are telling them.
>
> Our Social engineers following scripts without deviation, like machines
> with computer programs, interpreting those scripts with no thought for the
> source of those scripts, with no thought for how unlike the machines

This is how the current economic crisis was caused. Greedy self cantered
incompetent management following scripts which are now prescribing austerity
and refusing to deviate from these scripts when everyone can see the
austerity is making everything worse. Everything falls apart when ordinary
people become part of the charade by following the scripts as well out of
fear of what these people might do to them and their jobs.

> we are. Its called science, apparently. A Sicence of controlled
> controllers controlling. For Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, See B.F
> Skinner's 'Beyond Freedom & Dignity' - [paraphrasing Nietzsche], with its
> proposal of systematic behavior modification to control society.
> Of course control on this level didn't start with Skinner.. and is in
> fact hinted at by Nietzsche 'Beyond Good and Evil' as an 1860's witness
> of the future of modernity.

Emperor's New Clothes syndrome is the result of a totally clues management
and political class running today's world that knows absolutely nothing
about the industry they are managing or ordinary people and is driven only
by greed, sycophancy and people sucking up to it and telling it is always
right and always saying yes and everyone else to afraid to challenge them
and point out the reality because of the consequences.

[Agamemnon]

"The Doctor" <doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:k8u0fp$p3a$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...

I think you mean finished going by it's current sales of smartphones.

[The Doctor]

In article <KeOdnTbUTZPdFi_N...@eclipse.net.uk>,

The finnish are fnished?

In NA Nokia is doing reasonably well.

[Agamemnon]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8svhs$lr7$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

The problem isn't technology. It's man that has created the scripts and man
which is following them not the technology. Look at the current economic
crisis which has been made even worse by the prescription of austerity. It
wasn't machines which prescribed austerity. It was the rich out to make a
profit for themselves and themselves alone at the expense of the poor. They
funded the academic posts and universities which swayed in their direction
in order to give themselves a degree of respectability and effectively
bribed them to say what ever they wanted despite the fact everyone knew that
it was austerity that turned the recession in the 1930s into the Great
Depression. These rich con artists duped the incompetent IMF, central
bankers, and politicians into believing that austerity was what they had to
do in order to look like they were on top of things and they would look like
fools otherwise and the morons followed the script to the letter, and it's
only now that some of them like the IMF are realising that austerity has
made the crisis even worse and has only benefited the greedy bankers who
caused it in the firsts place which they bailed out instead of letting them
fail and getting their just deserts.

It's the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome in play once again. Economies isn't
a science and never has been. It's all about fashion and has less scientific
credibility than even spiritual healing.

[The Doctor]

In article <ctidndz05rf2Ey_N...@eclipse.net.uk>,

Watch it mate! I am an economist by trade.

[Agamemnon]

"The Doctor" <doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote in message

news:k8ubuk$734$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...

Then you should know full well that I'm absolutely right. It's all about
what who says what to whom and when. Those in on it make a profit and those
not in on it make a loss. Is all a huge confidence scam. Just look at when
they had to hold the votes in the Greek parliament, at midnight on a Sunday
so as not to make the markets volatile.

[The Doctor]

In article <x_ydnZR5D4hyKC_N...@eclipse.net.uk>,

What about the more prices go up, the less will be spent?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"FishFood" <do...@home.com> wrote in message

news:k8t39p$uek$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Agamemnon wrote:

>> What's was that Star Trek TNG episode which repeated the same day over
>> and over again with Geordie programming messages into Data which he was
>> somehow able to remember in the next repetition to enlighten him more
>> about how the Enterprise blowing up caused the time loop they just
>> discovered they were in.
>
> SG-1 had a similar story, where one of the commanders was trapped in a
> simulation, each time it repeated the story would elaborate on the loop
> and his attempts to escape it.
>
> 'GroundHog Day' is my favorite for this device, but there's the more
> recent 'Source Code' which i also enjoyed.

Hah. I loved that SG-1 episode. LOL at the black dude getting his face
slammed by the door and giving some pushback.

--
Charles E. Hardwidge