One of the Christmas traditions I remember as a child was getting the Christmas edition of the Radio Times delivered and spending ages pouring over the pages picking out all the things I was going to watch on TV over the holidays. I was particularly to the movies and could sit and watch the old favourites – White Christmas, Lassie, Bugsy Malone over and over each year.
But that was the days before video recorders, DVDs and internet broadcasting. How festive home entertainment has changed.
Here in New Zealand we hardly ever watch terrestial TV. The amount of adverts make it a painful experience so anything we do watch we record and then play it back so we can skip through the ads. We have sky for sport and news. Oh, OK I’ll admit it, also the lifestyle and food channels and UK TV. The rest of the other zillion channels I could frankly do without.
We’ve watched some excellent DVDs this year. Here’s my top 10 picks.
- ER – I’m addicted and watching the whole lot (I’m up to the series where Doctor Green has just died).
- The West Wing – Season 3 (again) although we have the final series we’ve still not watched
- Cranford – a BBC costume drama which all the thesps in it
- Wild China – one of the most fascinating and enjoyable documentaries about wildlife in China
- Michael Palin in Europe – easy viewing with our intrepid traveller
- House – I’ve got hooked this year and needed to go back to season 1.
- Party Animals – a political drama that was fun for a Friday night
- Geoff Hamilton’s gardening archives – inspiration for our kitchen garden
- Five Days – a gripping drama about missing children and their mum
- Prime Suspect 7 – Dame Helen at her best.
You’ll notice there aren’t many movies in this list. In fact, none at all. We’re not movie DVD people. Don’t know why. We do have lots of movies on DVD but we’ve gravitated to series which make for enough TV on an evening.
Recently we’ve stepped up our technology and started to watch more BBC programmes and just caught the tail end of the Strictly Come Dancing series. Good wholesome entertainment that never hurt anyone although can keep you in suspense as celebrities strut their stuff. MT has been saying Internet TV is the future of broadcasting and it’s nice to know we’re already enjoying it. We have to be selective about what we download as we don’t have endless bandwidth but it’s enough to satisfy my Strictly addiction and the news and current affairs that MT has really missed. There is nothing better than settling down to watch Have I Got News for You.
So this year instead of looking through the Radio Times for festive viewing it’s going on line and checking out the IPlayer instead. And, there is a Christmas Day Strictly Special so that will be enough for me!
Oh, if you’re wondering how we do it. I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to but I simply don’t know. With vegetables to worry about I leave the technology to MT. All I know is it’s legal and involves a cunning route and 10 GBP per month.
So are you ready for your festive viewing – what are your top 10 picks?
Had to go and check out the tv listings as we stopped bothering with the Radio Times about 2 years ago. Definitely will be watching Strictly, having been avid followers and I see there is a Dancing on Ice special later as well. The family will want to watch Dr Who and I’d like to catch Memoirs of a Geisha, I read the book but didn’t see the film when it came out. Apart from those I didn’t see anything else that caught my eye. Other programmes that we watch are- Casualty, Holby, House, Survivors, (America’s next top model, Project Runway/Catwalk – me only) and I have to confess to watching Australian soaps while I’m doing my sit ups. Oh and any disaster/monster/scifi movies. We are so far from the exchange that our ‘broadband’ is 1/4 mb while most people get 2-8 and Linas gets 19 in Plymouth, so it’s not always possible to watch BBC iplayer. I’ll just be happy to collapse in front of anything on the box once we’ve eaten dinner or I’ve plenty of books.
Happy viewing.
It was me, I’m not anonymous just not getting on so well with Google Chrome as my browser.
Hi Ruta, I guessed it was you!
I love Strictly although it seems to have been a bit of a voting fiasco. Let me know what you think of the Memoirs of a Geisha film. I loved the book and am afraid that the movie will disappoint me. I suspect all our Christmas viewing will be done after Christmas on demand!
Hope you enjoy the festivities.