Station is so Fetch

Paternity leave was, among other things, a great opportunity to catch up on various DVDs that I had been stockpiling. I watched lots of good stuff (and some complete bobbins), but by far the most affecting was Dekalog, which I had bizarrely picked up in a dodgy outlet in Nanjing. Yes, a miserabilist 10-hour TV series from the 80s. Set on a Polish housing estate.

There are 10 episodes, each loosely related to one of the 10 commandments, and each episode has a separate storyline and set of characters with only occasional overlap. There are few joyful moments, but the moral complexity of the stories was hugely compelling, and it felt adult in a way that no other TV I have seen has done before.

Then I watched Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

I was reminded of this by a great article by a film critic challenging his innate anti-TV bias, a bias that I generally share. I particularly like the admission that "it's significant that my strict policing of my kids' TV viewing habits allows them to watch programmes on CBeebies and CBBC but only in the correct aspect ratio ('How many times do I have to tell you, Tweenies is anamorphic 16x9!').

The only TV I really watch is determined by what DVD box sets I pick up - this season I have been mainly watching Life on Earth and Curb Your Enthusiasm. What have I been missing out on?