‘Reality TV signals the death of intelligence and quality on the small screen’

Where have all the talented Australian television writers we used to have gone? Twenty years ago one could rely on some decent programs pretty much every night of the week, on whichever channel one chose to watch and in a myriad formats. From Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday, with its wonderful, freeform comedy and quite exciting content, to more serious material such as Homicide, Prisoner and Patrol Boat.

The presentation then was admittedly a little primitive by the standards we are now accustomed to; many were in black and white rather than colour and a lot of the participating actors were less well-known than some of the ‘stars’ of today, but the scripts were unfailingly good, with well worked out storylines and excellent dialogue. I would say the Australian writers of the 1960s and ’70s were at least as good as any in the world.

Now most of the TV we watch is either from overseas or, if produced here, mainly rubbish! Take all these ridiculous, so-called ‘reality’ shows that fill our screens, night after night, such as Married at First Sight (virtually legalised prostitution); The Voice, where groups of people see who can shout the loudest, to music; My Kitchen Rules, where the contestants spend more time sniping at each other than they do on cooking; or The Block, which runs along similar themes to My Kitchen Rules, but with houses instead of plates of food.

They may be called ‘reality’ but nothing could be further from the truth. They pretend to be unscripted and spontaneous, but it stands to reason that unless some person injected that necessary load of friction into each episode, by means of art direction and chosen subject matter, if not complete scripts, it would be less exciting than watching grass grow!

In my opinion, the few passably good shows that remain on ‘free-to-air’ come mainly from England; shows like Midsomer Murders, Keeping Up Appearances or A Touch of Frost. Yet, the problem with these shows is that they were all made quite a few years ago and I’ve seen almost all of them at least four or five times!

Another part of local television that is quite well done is in the dissemination of news, though even these days it tends to be more a load of political hogwash and social media driven, rather than genuine, decent news. Finally we have the documentaries! Now these tend to shine like a light in the dark. I enjoy the ones produced in the United Kingdom, but there are also a number made in Australia that are of top quality. I find the ones that are made in the United States are often spoilt by the injection of too much l’good-old-boy American pizzazz’, with an overload of music thumping away in the background bearing no association with the pictorial material being broadcast, and their presenters insisting on creating more drama than the subject calls for!

One can’t help feeling there was a small group of excellent screenwriters here in Australia, at the time when there was just one channel broadcasting, who between them wrote some really fine stuff. Then more and more channels were released, requiring an ever-growing harvest of new material, but there wasn’t the great writing to match. In stepped a lot of eager young things anxious to get their material on the air and television companies lapped them up, pumping out more stuff to fill the time-gaps now presenting themselves.

The trouble was (and is), these new writers possessed none of the talent or experience of that small original group and the quality of output was drastically reduced. In desperation came u’reality’ television. It’s cheap to produce, needs no skilled or well-known actors, and it requires only minimal scripting! What more could a talentless group of so-called writers ask for?

My one great suspicion is that this is all a subterfuge, dreamt up by the television bosses — a way of getting us to take on ‘pay TV’, where more quality material is supposedly produced. But perhaps I am just being too suspicious!

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