The real shame in all of this is the BBC's apparent desire to compete with ITV on ratings. They have no need. To take comedy as just one example (this is a comedy website after all), there is absolutely no comparison between the two. Whereas the BBC has delivered to us TW3, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Porridge, Open All Hours, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Blackadder, The Fast Show, The Royle Family, Dinnerladies, Keeping Up Appearances, Gavin And Stacey and countless others, ITV has given us George and Mildred, Mind Your Language and er - not much else. I loved Girls On Top - well it was written by French and Saunders and of course Men Behaving Badly was originally an ITV series until they got bored with it.
Nowadays, both engage in the big set piece shows - Live From The Apollo or an Audience with... kind of stuff. All very funny, but also so incredibly formulaic and of course cheap. Even the panel shows such as QI or Mock The Week are made because they are relatively cheap to make. New sitcoms take a while to get going, and if you're going to follow Cleese's example with Fawlty Towers and only make 12 episodes, then unless you are John Cleese it's going to become incredibly difficult to have your series made...
via Tellyspotting by Bill Young on 05/06/10
Now, more than ever, former Monty Python great, John Cleese, would love to utter the words, “And Now For Something Completely Different” and have it relate to television in the 21st century.
Still recuperating in his Santa Barbara home from recent knee surgery and planning his upcoming Alimony Tour across the UK, John Cleese, has had a lot of time on his hands these days to think about “things”. With respect to the BBC, ITV and British television, in general, he doesn’t like what he sees. Gone are the “glory days” of television where the word quality was mentioned, and mentioned frequently, during program planning meetings, Cleese says.
The star of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers and The Frost Report, amongst others, Cleese obviously misses television output from the fifties through the eighties. As I have said repeatedly, there is quality television there, unfortunately, you just have to search a lot harder for it. From Cleese’s perspective, the good ‘ole days consisted of far less bad television with Britain leading the way. He doesn’t see it getting any better as planners grab for the elusive dollar, laying blame at the feet of “hard-headed businessmen” that now control the likes of ITV and the BBC.
The word quality may not appear in planning meetings anymore, but it still exists and it’s up to viewers to demand it no matter what side of the pond you’re on.