AM I the only one troubled by the quality of Christmas TV this year?
Is there anyone out there similarly vexed?
It had to be, by far, the worst collection of (how does one describe this delicately) RUBBISH ever assembled by all five terrestrial channels and their digital cousins.
It is a sure sign of the credit crunch hitting the major TV stations hard when they can’t afford to splash out a few bucks on some decent Crimbo movies.
Perhaps, they gave all their money away to the banks as well or are they upgrading their TV license dodger detector super-vans?
One of the core elements of my own little festive season is the TV schedule. My days unfold according to what’s on and when.
Christmas dinner has to fit neatly in between two films or it just doesn’t work. The whole family sitting down together all bug-rug-snug to watch a choice film on the box was a staple ingredient of the Christmas experience at my house.
When I was a wee lass, I was glued to the lounge for a week, still in my PJs and sporting my new dressing gown, surrounded by selection boxes, presents and spoiled rotten with so many films from noon to night you couldn’t possibly watch them all – but I still tried.
Not this year though.
On the big day, after the exchange of gifts, our delicious Mexican dinner and a walk round a snowy-ish Brighton Beach, we returned to our nest and put our feet up in front of the tube, relishing the possible spectacle before us.
There was family favourite The Incredibles in the afternoon, but the Keanu Reeves bomb-on-the-bus action romp Speed was a shabby effort from the Beeb for their final film of the day.
ITV won the crowd in the end no doubt with Gladiator at the end of the night, but only just.
A slew of boring old flicks followed every night, coupled with TV shows my granny can just about recall.
Benny is finally over the Hill, The Best of the Two Ronnie’s, five minutes of their best was (I’m sorry boys) a cringe-worthy exhibition of the worst imaginable jokes masquerading as humour. Comedy has definitely evolved.
Final Destination 3? Driven? Inspector Gadget? These are some of the worst films ever made!
Aces High? Throw Momma From The Train?
These films weren’t good when they were released. Trust me, they don’t improve over time.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, albeit genius was on pretty much every day.
Cut Throat Island , Bad Santa and The Matrix Trilogy were all repeated twice.
Vegging in front of the TV over the holidays and vying for space on the couch with cake and fine wine was saved only by the fact that I have managed to amass the biggest DVD collection known to man. So all and all, Christmas TV was saved in the end!