The BBC used to be the home of good documentaries. Sadly this is no longer true.
And it’s not just on the BBC that the quality of documentaries is slipping, so is this part of the dumbing down of television in general?
Yes, I think it is.
But I don’t know why the producers of documentaries, feel they have to rely on the sort of visual trickery which so irritates me. Rapid cuts, repeated use of the same bit of footage and shoots that try to look ‘arty’ are all, it seems, tools in the modern documentary producers.
Documentaries are are about getting facts across. If they have to ‘jazz’ the subject up, it is either not very interesting or they are explaining it wrong and since every subject can be made to be interesting, they must be doing it wrong!
It’s all down to the presenters I think. And presenter can make or break a documentary and this it seems is the problem. There seems to be a trend to use celebrity presenters. There is nothing wrong in having a celebrity make a documentary, if they have a real passion for the subject. This key, the documentary presenter needs to both know and love there subject. If they do you have the best foundation to build the documentary on. You don’t need tricks to interest the audience, they will be interested in the content.
I’d really noticed the decline of the quality of documentaries on the BBC because of a run a good quality programs. These documentaries, which hark back to ‘the good old days’, Empire of the Oceans, How the Earth Made Us, Chemistry, a volatile history, show just how good the BBC can make documentaries. Another reason that these thoughts came to mind was due a program from the other of the quality spectrum, The Virtual Revolution.
Gaghhh! I had high hopes for this one, but I was sadly disappointed. Now I know, it was more about the social history of the internet, but that’s no excuse for technical errors. And the presenter, Dr Aleks Krotoski, just doesn’t come across as being really interested in the subject. Maybe she is, but that interest is just not getting transmitted to me!
All of what I’ve said so far goes double for the so called documentary channel, The Discovery Channel. I should expect that really, since of the programs shown here are made for the american market and are just re-dubbed with an english narrator. This dosen’t work for me at all. I need to see the person for them to really be able to communicate any excitement to me. These ‘faceless’ voices, which are from actors that might have no interest in the subject at all, really do kill the subject they are trying to explain.

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