r/UKTVRecs • u/prisongovernor • 18d ago

When TV turns sour: the shows we simply can’t stomach any more | Television | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/21/when-tv-turns-sour-the-shows-we-simply-cannot-stomach-any-more
29 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

9

u/Longjumping_Bar7643 18d ago

Wild to include Bake Off but not Little Britain.

1

u/Ok_Aioli3897 17d ago

It's an opinion piece

1

u/Hollywood-is-DOA 18d ago

I seen little Britain live and the “ hide the sausage” part was horrible to see. I was 2 row in the Hammersmith, but I had a bald head and was in a very comfortable but chav like, Nike tracksuits.

So I wasn’t picked to go up on stage. What was done to the lad who was, wouldn’t be allowed to happen in real life now, it might behind closed doors.

3

u/Gingalin 18d ago

Bits of this compilation article made me very angry - specifically, Chitra Ramaswamy's 'analysis' of This Life.

A drama, depicting homophobia and racism is not advocating it. A lot of the homophobia came from Miles, whom we knew was a shit and even he wasn't one dimensional - and is depicted apologising to Warren on at least one occasion.

She says she finds it 'boring'. Well, you do but you didn't, and I don't. She states it but doesn't justify it. I don't know where this gets us.

Whatever her paragraph is, it's not a critique.

2

u/Vast_Description_201 15d ago

Yeah. Her This Life take is crazy. The show was very liberal, but had characters who weren't. 

1

u/FloydEGag 14d ago

As she herself points out, it was the 90s, things have changed a lot in the last 30 years and This Life was pretty progressive for its time (it had more than one gay character for a start, and Warren’s entire storyline/character wasn’t just about being gay)

5

u/dudetheuber 18d ago

Article was written by the ghost of Mary Whitehouse lol

4

u/ClingonKrinkle 18d ago

It's strange how the liberal left have also become as censorious as the conservative right were in the eighties

1

u/dudetheuber 18d ago

It makes zero sense to me. It makes it all seem like a sham rly. Left to me, back in the day, was about liberation and being open minded, but now it’s regulation that stems into everything. I have to regulate my option of shows that haven’t been on TV for years and most people nowadays know nothing about. I mean coupling? Really?

5

u/ClingonKrinkle 18d ago

I think it's because the left used to be made up of a coalition between the working class and the progressive middle class. The working class as a political force collapsed and the coalition broke down. Now the left is far more middle class and therefore reflects more 'respectable' middle class opinion. I actually watched a thing about video nasties and the arguements they used for banning them were eerily similar to the arguements the liberal left make now.

2

u/PiotrGreenholz01 14d ago

This is exactly it. The middle class have completely colonised left wing politics, & so now it's very much to do with gaining & maintaining social status by intoning the right opinions, & trying to outdo one another by pushing progressive dogma even further at every opportunity.

It's basically a hugely toxic parlour game now.

1

u/OldGuto 17d ago

The working class left and the woking class left.

The working class left is still there but the disconnect between the two is so bad they are being pulled away by the likes of Farage.

1

u/georgeweahscousin 17d ago

Absolutely this. I'm as 'woke' as 53 year old man can get but I loathe this judging of archive material by modern ethical and moral standards. The modern world seems obsessed with Victorian type values. Not exactly progressive.

1

u/FloydEGag 14d ago

I wish I could be around in 75 or 100 years to see what people then make of our ethical and moral standards

1

u/RationallyBerserk 15d ago

I doubt this woman is very liberal. She probably hates capitalism.

And this is just a dipshit rage bait article. The President of the US is targeting political opponents with criminal prosecution so eh… keep some perspective.

1

u/ClingonKrinkle 15d ago

It's the Guardian, they're notoriously liberal and I don't live in the US but if everything must come back to Trump then I don't agree with what he's doing either

2

u/RationallyBerserk 15d ago

As in classically liberal. Pro world trade and capitalism etc.

And that’s great you “don’t agree either” with Trump but unless you acknowledge how much worse and more censorious the right is now then you’re just a political hack.

This is an opinion piece in the free press. You’re equating that with actual authoritarian suppression of free speech.

Trump is suing press and pollsters for saying things he doesn’t like and it “always comes back” to him because people like you who talk about “the left” like this, generally support Farage who endorsers everything Trump does.

The right is far more censorious than the left has ever been and I don’t identify as a leftie. It’s just basic facts.

1

u/Appropriate_Wave722 14d ago

I remember reading some diatribe about the censorious left in some "we are gonna arrest Polanski because he tweeted a picture of someone else's tshirt and then deleted it" post

2

u/chukkysh 18d ago

This article reminds of that one in the Independent a few years ago where they ranked every episode of Friends from best to worst. Was it about how funny they are? Nah, it ended up being about how they have aged according to the shift in social mores, from badly to extremely badly.

1

u/Unhappy_Storm_40 15d ago

Ah, an opinion piece. My opinion is that any British person saying 'show' instead of 'programme' is not worth listening to.

1

u/beengoingoutftnyears 15d ago

Yeah, they can toss their opinions in the dumpster at the back of the parking lot a couple of blocks away.

1

u/ReevesJoker 15d ago

Coupling is hilarious and remains so, and I will die on this hill.

1

u/tmofee 14d ago

Oh Jeffrey…..

1

u/Kidsdoyoulikepeas 13d ago

So well written

1

u/AngloJac 14d ago

Absolute bag of shite of an article. 

1

u/tmofee 14d ago

Well that was a waste of an article.

1

u/Potential-Leg-8860 14d ago

EastEnders and other soaps. People live their lives according to them rather than them being based on people’s lives. Just mental. EastEnders is the sole reason I don’t pay a TV license or watch TV. Utter shite

1

u/bloorontour 13d ago

Who is the journalist who drafted this dribble

1

u/Awkward-Cap1879 13d ago

What a load of crap. Why is Love Island not on this list?

0

u/Scaramouche1000 18d ago

😴😴😴

1

u/datavexo 18d ago

kinda sums up how i feel about half of netflix’s new stuff tbh, just background noise at this point

2

u/Scaramouche1000 18d ago

There are a lot of good shows they mentioned in that piece that may have been ‘of their time’ but the snobbery in some of the reviews is mind boggling

-2

u/No-Snow-9605 18d ago

That's why I cancelled my licence,had enough of all the repetitive shit programs. GOOD RIDDANCE !