With news gripping us, The Hour's news-based drama seems prescient. Here are six more shows that caused a splash
It's quite the time for newsmakers at the moment ? what with journalists now being the news instead of reporting it. And the BBC's gripping new thriller The Hour is starting to look less like fiction by the day.
While Romola Garai and Dominic West whisk us back to the heady days of clacking typewriters, spinning headline montages and gals in pencil skirts delivering bulletins to serious-looking middle-aged men in horn-rimmed glasses, let's take a look at six of the best newsroom-based shows on the box. I can almost smell the printer's ink from here ?
Drop the Dead Donkey ? 1990
A fast and furious Channel 4 sitcom that was always filmed close to transmission to really catch the news wave as it crested. Set in the offices of GlobeLink TV News, it featured a collection of lazy, self-serving journos (and a couple of nice ones for balance) going about their daily news gathering and throwing satirical paper darts at real news events as they happened. It was ambitious and genuinely funny. And wouldn't now be an amazing time to bring it back?
Press Gang ? 1989
Ah, the teenage stirrings engendered by Dexter Fletcher and Julia Sawalha's hot-blooded news banter over the desk at the Junior Gazette.
This Stephen Moffat-penned drama was the best thing on television when I was growing up. Apart from Dear Heart with Toyah. It was a Sorkin juniors kind of a show with fast, smart banter and highly intelligent teenagers acting like real, grown-up journalists. Possibly also the sexiest thing on TV if you were a youngster longing for a career in newspapers. Cor.
State of Play ? 2003
We're not talking about the Russell Crowe film. This is the original and best political thriller penned by the unbeatable Paul Abbott. MP David Morrissey gets up to his neck in scandal when his intern/mistress is pushed under a tube train. And young journos John Simm, Kelly Macdonald and James McAvoy chase down the story that could bring the country to its knees. Televisual dynamite from start to end.
Trivia fans may also like to know that I was in the tube-shoving scene as an extra, standing next to Sonia when she was murdered. But it wasn't me, honest.
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman ? 1993
The comic book duo returned to our screens in the 90s, played by lantern-jawed Dean Cain and a beauteous Teri Hatcher. The Daily Planet was where Lois and Clark's will-they-won't-they romance was played out over the photocopier as they investigated criminal mysteries together. And she had no clue he was really Superman because of that incredible disguise he wore to become Clark Kent. Some glasses. Honestly, some investigative journalist she was.
The Wire (season 5)? 2008
By the final season of David Simon's Baltimore-set epic poem, focus had switched from the criminals, the cops and city hall to the media.
Journalists at the fictionalised Baltimore Sun battled with endemic corruption, budget cuts and their proprietors' and politicians' desire to maintain the status quo. All sounds a bit familiar doesn't it? The very people supposed to be "sounding the alarm" when society's mechanisms fail are part of the problem. It would be worth re-watching but the news is exciting enough at the moment.
Hot Metal 1986
Most have forgotten this David Renwick Fleet Street comedy set in the offices of The Daily Crucible. In another familiar-sounding tale, a moneybags proprietor takes over a dull newspaper and sends it plummeting downmarket into a scandal-seeking rag. It is most memorable for gutter journalist Greg Kettle whose shameless pursuit of filth seemed far-fetched at the time, if not so much now. And Robert Hardy needlessly and confusingly played two characters. But apart from that, it was splendid, high-quality stuff also starring Geoffrey Palmer as the hapless editor, standing Canute-like as the tide of filth sweeps towards him.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jul/19/six-to-watch-newsrooms
Students Cancún climate change conference 2010 | COP16 Occupational pensions Nuclear weapons Savings rates Liza Minnelli
No comments:
Post a Comment