6 October 2007

TVNZ, doco and stupidity

I'm going to avoid mentioning the word 'Charter' here. That would be too easy.

TVNZ recently played the Stephen Fry documentary 'The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive', an absolutely wonderful and interesting doco by Fry exploring his MD (bipolar) side. At times brutally honest, Fry described how he'd almost committed suicide, been thrown in jail and the most recent media event, running away from the stage show. In between his personal exploration of the illness, he talked to others suffering from MD - from extreme cases who were unable to function at all, to more mild 'famous' cases (Richard Dreyfuss and Carrie Fisher). One thing I found interesting was the Dr working in the ward saying they had a 90-95% success rate in helping people. As he said, what other discipline can claim that?

I haven't been this hooked by a doco for sometime, it was moving, interesting, informative and with Fry's characteristic dry humour.
All of which raises the question: why was it on at 1125pm on a Sunday night?

Jane Bowron in her column also bemoaned the timing saying that had it concerned Britney or that ilk, it would have made primetime TV.

Instead we had one of the most interesting, literate and honest presenters currently working, critically exploring a devastating illness at a time when no-one will be watching.
Great move TVNZ.

On the plus side, if anyone wants to borrow it I have it on tape (yeah ol skool) so you can skip the ads that paid for it to be on at such a stupid time.

B x
(currently watching For a Few Dollars More)

4 comments:

Morgan Davie said...

I wants it! I will pay you in Scotsmen. One Scotsman for one night in return for the loan...

Alternatively, I can just give you beer.

Sphenodon said...

See Blair, even Morgue reads my blog!! Where do you think he gets all his ideas from! See Blair, I am the most important.

Chris said...

I wants it too! Not very handy though. I'm not even sure if it's going to be on here.

Scarlet Dux said...

If you ask him nicely he might do the video to dvd thing - of course payment may be forwarded to his most beloved high commander and she will then divvie up the bottles - 4 for her 1 for him kind of thing....

S.