Message-ID: <145@ISM780.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 01:59:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780.145
Posted: Tue Mar  5 01:59:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 05:41:19 EST
Lines: 32
Nf-ID: #R:topaz:-82300:ISM780:32900005:177600:1618
Nf-From: ISM780!patrick    Mar  4 01:51:00 1985

I can't say I'll miss Dr. Who much as I always considered it tacky and
silly in the extreme after I passed the age of 12 (outraged flames by
personal mail, please), but I thought I'd add some speculation and some
historical background:

As someone recently pointed out, Dr. Who is a BBC (non-commercial) as
opposed to ITV (commercial) production.  Many of us Brits still can't
abide to watch TV that has advertisements in it.  Anyway, one of the
leading businessmen behind commercial TV in England is Lew Grade (now Sir
Lew Grade).  I forget who said it, but when Parliament was first debating
the introduction of commercial TV, one MP objected that to grant a
commercial TV license was to grant a 'license to print money'.  Sure
enough, Lew Grade and a handful of others became multi-millionaires, and
just as inevitably, were granted "Honours" by the Queen (in reality, by
the Prime Minister of the day).  This despite the critism from middle-
class intellectuals that they were producing shoddy rubbish which
pandered to the lowest in public taste.  In consequence of his ITV
programming Lew Grade acquired the nickname "Low Greed".  I suspect that
Anthony is a member of the family.  God help the BBC if these guys are
now in charge.

I suppose this really belongs in net.politics, but to get back to the
point, can commercial television (or even the BBC) ever produce *good*
science fiction (as opposed to tacky stuff we accept because it's all we
can get)?  Let's leave Star Trek and Dr. Who out of the discussion.  What
else is there?

Patrick Curran

Interactive Systems Corp.

   ...ihnp4!ima!ism780!patrick