I've can only get American television over here.
I've been reading a lot.
Larry King. The diluted version of all and any talk show hosts. Asking petty questions with his soft, almost timid probing, all in the quest of revealing nothing profound about the person he is interviewing. He asked Lisa Marie Presley "Do you think your dad changed music?"
Ohhhhh, tough one. Give me a moment on the internet to do some research before I have to get back to you on that.
Now he's interviewing Dr Phil. Whom I've never heard of before but I already get the idea this guy holds himself so high and mighty that mere mortals like you and me could only face his scorn. They have shown a couple of clips of Dr Phil getting angry at people on his show. Telling them how to live their lives, but not in the way that you feel he wants to help these people. In the way that he takes great pleasure pointing out where others have gone wrong.
The only quality thing I have seen was on CNN. No, it was not CNN. Watching CNN is like watching an amateur dramatics society trying to impress the bosses to get their own show. Only this is aired 24 painful hours a day and pretends to communicate 'facts' to the audience.
The best thing on CNN is The Daily Show. I think this is the same show Chris keeps harking on about. It's brilliant. After the British election they did a special, and while pretending to take the piss out of the British, did a brilliant job of poking fun at themselves. It was genius.
Larry King just asked, "We should never judge a trial before it's over, but what is your opinion of Michael Jackson. . . as a person?" Ohh Larry. See how you tried to weave that question to insinuate you didn't want to Jackson bash, and yet still, it's so transparent. This guy is meant to be a professional They are now discussing sexual predators, "man-childs" and inappropriate behaviour. But heaven forbid that they have just judged Michael Jackson.
Luckily for me however, yesterday I saw a great great film I don't know what it was called because I didn't catch the beginning. It was about Folk Singers and followed three bands in particular. It was like Spinal Tap for the Folk scene and was very quietly hilarious. Whoever wrote the script had a subtle eye and managed to weave jokes out of thin air while keeping it's documentary fa?cade in perfect order.
It's been a mixed bag on telly this week. It's just a shame that the entertainment shows are so good, and the factual and news shows are so bad.