14-05-2025
Great television is being made. So why aren't we watching it?
As a rule, I hate awards ceremonies. The idea of sitting and watching several hours of inane acceptance speeches, humblebrags and standing ovations is enough to make me want to infiltrate a lost tribe in the Chaco forest, and stay there till kingdom come. But I have to admit, the Bafta TV Awards on Sunday made me reassess my grouchy stance – for the first time in years I felt that prizes really matter.
Because the Bafta TV Awards, by and large, got it right. These awards were not gunning for Instagram glory, or photo opportunities, but focused instead on real talent. Among the judges' eminently sensible decisions were awarding acting honours to Lennie James and Ariyon Bakare (as closeted lovers in Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman – quite easily the best two performances of last year), and recognising Northern Irish cop show Blue Lights, documentary Atomic People, which followed some of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Alma's Not Normal, a joyously raucous comedy from Sophie Willan.
With the exception of Blue Lights, none of these shows rated very highly in terms of audience figures, none were part of what I hesitate to call the national conversation. And yet they were among the best things on television in 2024. Instead, we obsessed over The Traitors (no Baftas cue, social media outrage) and Rivals (sort of all right, but again no Baftas). Netflix's Baby Reindeer was also one of the most talked-about shows of last year and yet Jessica Gunning, a deserved Bafta winner, was the only good thing about this overpraised show.
So what has gone wrong? Why are we, as viewers, so intent on ignoring the brilliant and celebrating the mediocre? A lot of it is because hype has reduced rigour, and so someone creates a buzz and everyone loses their minds – or else viewers can't be bothered actually to seek out something new for themselves.
I also find that the casual viewer is becoming far more overbearing in their opinions. Both as a journalist and as a civilian, I am constantly being assailed by people telling me how much they love something. 'Have you seen [Netflix romcom] Nobody Wants This? It's sooooo goooood.' 'Oh my God, [thriller] The Jetty blew my mind. Were you not, like, dying?'
Well, no. Of course I realise that taste is subjective and we risk getting into snob territory. Yet while I do broadly believe in people power – that the success of a show like Strictly Come Dancing should be praised, in part, because it is so loved, and that its popularity reflects, in a way, that it is a great show – I also think that we should take note of professional opinion, too. Yet more and more, there seems to be a gulf between critical praise and audience figures (Atomic People was only watched by 400,000 people – although of course many will have caught up on iPlayer).
The end result of all of this is worryingly obvious. Fewer risks will be taken and so we will all soon be dribbling in a corner and watching Claudia Winkleman on a loop until we spontaneously combust. The rest is static.
Yet it doesn't have to be this way. If those who commission TV were to start listening properly to original pitches rather than chasing a particular formula which will appeal to the lobotomised, we would all be the better for it.
In the meantime, for those of you who are still sentient, I would recommend going to iPlayer and watching Alma's Not Normal, Atomic People and Mr Loverman. They are, like, sooooo gooood.
