I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with TV. I was listening to Neds Atomic Dustbin ‘Kill Your Television’ this week, along with a smattering of Rage against the Machine that suggested really (in a way that was, I admit, popular at the time) that the idiot box is a sop for the masses. The thing is I don’t actually like TV, but I cannot help watching it. Maybe the point stands.
I like to think I only watch comedy and news/documentaries. Mock the Week, QI, 8 out of 10 Cats, Have I Got News for You, the Channel 4 News etc. But in reality I watch Jeremy Kyle (often with my jaw on the floor), Big Brother, Hells Kitchen USA and anything that involves the early stages of public humiliation when trying to achieve misguided stardom.
One of the jewels of television though has to be Tribe with Bruce Parry. The last episode in the series aired tonight and the televisual landscape is much poorer without it. I love many things about this show; Parry is not only clearly as hard as nails, but he doesn’t feel it necessary to rub it in your face – in fact he comes over as being far from that, but there’s very little chance you would swap places with him for a day. The program is diverse, taking in many different cultures and settings, and climes. One of the best things about it though is that it has never presented a particular agenda. Whichever tribe is visited, it’s clear from the program that their lifestyle is under threat – such is the price of progress. However it’s never, ever grist to his mill. So when the final program in the series highlights what really is a plight for the tribe that he stays with it’s even more powerful for it.
Environmental concerns be damned, the episode tonight that showed just how the Penan are suffering at the hands of Malaysia’s logging policy in Sarawak on Borneo was just heartbreaking and there was no other story to tell. Hemmed in by people bent on destroying their habitat the Penan were a progressive and not unreasonable indigenous people who just wanted some dialogue with the companies that ignored them. Watching the skill with which they are still living off their pockets of land was a real eye opener, levels of dexterity I think we just do not see in the world in which we live these days.
I have my fingers crossed for a series 4. Even more annoying is that on Sunday I lose another staple of my TV viewing as Channel 4’s excellent ‘The Deadliest Catch’ comes to an end.
Not sure what I will do with the extra 2 hours a week. Maybe I should do something other that fill it with more TV though!
