His Dark Materials.

Needless to say the best ‘who done its’ on TV are the Premier League. Ninety minutes and still it could all change in extra time. Every kick is ‘where’s it going to go next?’ In comparison dramas all tread some weary old path to some weary old conclusion using, as it’s fast becoming, some weary old CGI. My eyeballs are beginning to feel they’ve seen everything fact and fiction and witnessed every malignant trait of human nature along the way. I’m sure a Greek hero would have whipped his eyeballs out by now in the name of sanity. Philip Pullman, obviously a royal railway carriage and better suited to the exploits of Thomas the Tank Engine, was responsible for ‘His Dark Materials.’ (BBC TV, Monday) It probably worked as words but on TV it’s been treated with so much ‘weary old’ paraphernalia it’s hardly worth the effort to yawn. Even our best cat Britney is far more unpredictable and enigmatic yet at the same time well mannered and cultured. And far more watch-able. No, TV drama has taken a wrong turn. It’s playing with tech toys up a cul-de-sac in Leamington Spa. By comparison even my typical mundane day bounces between innumerable multi-verses in an effort to make progress with the one I’m in, constantly fragmenting and being gathered in only to fragment again. Today it is raining, I can hardly see through the window grime, and in my life that’s a huge plot twist. No chance of chipperising the plum tree branches and even putting a trip to Aldi in doubt. And without new working trousers, the one’s with lots of pockets, will I put my nice jeans at risk? Will I even muster the enthusiasm to put away yesterday’s dry now permanently creased washing? Drama is not necessarily going to the North Pole looking for dust! Or being followed around by a smallish tiger. And why, since the Shawshank Redemption, are all wise old men played by people resembling Morgan Freeman? Maybe the enduring appeal of Casablanca is they were still writing it as they went along. That they didn’t even know the ending is why I feel such affinity with it. I don’t either.