Channel 4 Rant

[Whipped]

Just a quick rant before I pop off to work.

Channel 4 have always done me in good stead. Their programmers have a reasonable idea of what a good film is, they pick some of the best sci-fi shows to air (Stargate, B5, etc.) and for the past couple of years they have had a very good breakfast TV schedule.

I use my TV as my alarm clock and have enjoyed waking up to, The Big Breakfast, R.I.S.E (In it's second incarnation) and recently a US sitcom I would never normally watch, Everybody Loves Raymond, which has had me in stiches most mornings.

I don't want to awake to the latest news of death and destruction on BBC1, the childrens programs of BBC2 or the muppetness of GMTV

CH 4 was my saviour between 8:00am and 8:25 am while my body awakes itself and trys to figure out if a 3:00am stint on Battlefield : Vietnam was really a good idea or not.

But all this changed yesterday, when I awoke to not Raymond, but to Big Brother's Little Brother on my beloved CH4.
Now, I have nothing in particular against Big Brother. It's not really my cup of tea and I think it has gone down hill since it stopped being the social experiment the first one was and has become a fame and profit making scheme for the idiot class of Britain. However, what I do take issue with is Channel 4 repeating the 5 or 6 pm showing of Big Brother's Little Brother the next morning at 8:00am!!! Is there really any need. If you are that desperate to see Dermot repeat himself ad-infinitum then surely you should just invest in E4.

Well, rant over. Except to plead with people, what can I watch between 8:00am and 8:25am in the morning that will make me cheery for work and not depressed at the state the world is in. I have access to all cable channels apart from Sky Movies and Sky Sports (No porn channels either, it's way to early for chicken choking).

Please, Please help me be happy.

If you got here, well done. I promise to never write this much in one sitting again.

 

[Jarakin]

I know how you feel mate, I watch a sitcom every saturday night late on, on C4, called Off Centre (by the producers of american pie), it usually shows every saturday night/sunday morning around 3am, and it seriously leaves me in stitches. Last weekend to my horror though it had been replace with 1 episode of Big Brother and 2 episodes of Jack & Jill. I really hope it was a one off occasion that it didnt air, but who knows with channel 4 Oh well.

 

[Skyler]

C4 used to have a great Friday night lineup... late night after all the random crap finished they would have classics such as Peep Show, South Park, Futurama, King of the Hill, The Michael Essany Show etc.

Now we are kinda stuck with a late night ep of KotH and that's about it... oh and lots of Big Brother.... Distraction is ok though

 

[tris-]

i was pissed off big time when i seen BB crap on my screen. i had been watching everybody loves raymond for months and i was getting into it. then one day BB is on!!

RARRRRR

also, either watch sky1 or one of the cartoon channels. i have started to watch GMTV now, which is mildly quirky around 8-8.30.

 

[Cask]

Yeah it was really good for a while. Friends was on at 7:30am, then they had everbody loves raymond followed by cheers, sometimes a double bill, and then frasier a bit later on. Then they got rid of frasier and now it's hardly worth getting up in the mornings

The problem isn't just channel 4 it's all TV from what I can see. 6pm used to be the time I'd switch on in the evenings but now there's absolutely nothing worth watching at that time. The only comedy is the friends rerun at 6:30pm.

Only thing to do is download episodes from suprnova overnight and have your tv-out set up for the morning

 

[Whipped]

But now that 24, Scrubs, Enterprise and Angel have finsihed I have nothing to watch. Although I suupose I could start watching an episode each morning of either Thundercats, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Visionaries or Centurions

 

[Wij]

Put your cartoon nerd skills to good use and find me the full 3 series of Gatchaman in Japanese with English sub-titles.

 

[Trem]

Gamezville on Sky One is ok I guess. Airs between 8am-9am(I think)

 

[tRoG]

I wait for the day when Big Brother goes away, and Friday nights become good watching once more

 

[Mazling]

Going back even further in history to late-night Channel 4, there were great anime/manga as well as other Asian subbed movies ... Jet Li and Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung (he's moved to C5!) et cetera. Vidz, The Divine David, and some even weirder one-offs were great. Now there are 900 20-minute-long US sitcoms (sigh) in a row. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but your average chav/irate housewife 1) is either asleep or out clubbing and, 2) ain't capable of operating a video recorder.
What is going on?

 

[Ukle]

Just to add another voice to this hatred of Big Brother and the downward slope that is Channel 4.

At least the Big Brother effect on C4 is only a few hours a day, but E4 is none stop wall to wall Big Brother until it finishes. I like E4 when i want some mindless drival to watch... can always be guaranteed some American Teen'ish Soap will be on or Friends which I also cant stand

It has to be said the controllers of C4 would seem to be happy if they could play none stop Big Brother and Friends 24 hours a day on both channels if they could get away with it

Only hope is that with the Boss of C4 going to the Beeb, C4 may start to go back to the good old days.... although hope to god the BBC doesn't go downhill as a result... Although with the almost constant repeats of Only Fools and Horses, Porridge, Good Life etc is hard to see how it could get any worse...

 

[tris-]

well now ch4 fucked up again, friends now starts 15 minutes earlier. OMG SO NOW I WATCH BBLB AND BB BEFORE WORK!

 

[Whipped]

Finally got Mysterious Cities of Gold encoded for VCD. So now I'm copying an episode to DVD each night and putting it in my DVD player in the bedroom before I go to sleep. Wake up, press play, all is well. Well, for 39 working days anyway. And that's only if I don't get tempted to watch them all one weekend