Pricasso

German tv is not up to the standard that I'm used to.

I grew up in England and despite being hampered by having a father who worked for the BBC and who therefore 'preferred' me and my brother to watch only BBC1 or BBC2 (somehow we managed to sneakily watch the Tomorrow People but sadly missed out on the Six Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angels) I'm used to quality drama - you only have to watch this summer's hit 'Sherlock Holmes' to recognise the fact that the Beeb is still number one when it comes quality tv shows with clever script writing, stunning cinematography and excellent casting.

Meanwhile German tv is stuck firmly in the 70's with evening long variety shows taking up prime time weekend evening slots, the ubiquitous reality shows and of course overdubbed US dramas like Grey's Anatomy and House.

Consequenntly I don't watch German tv, apart from Heidi's 'Germany's Next Top Model' (gotta wait till next spring for the new series though) and Germany's version of 'Celebrity Come Dine with Me' which is retitled 'Promi Dinners' here. I'm sure you know the format, in the UK the show is 1 hour long, which is the ideal length, here they've managed to stretch it to almost 2 and a half hours (90 minutes too long easily) I only watch it because I'm told by my teacher that I should be listening to more German than I do and this show is marginally entertaining, the Z-listers last week included a 7foot tall drag queen, an ex lead (for 5 years) of Mama Mia (I lost count of how many times she mentioned the show) a married pair of actors (he was either 20 years her senior, or she'd had work done) and the lead singer of a German rock band who had tame squirrels on his balcony. I watched it to the bitter end - as they tried to out do each other with their culinary (or not) expertise (3 of them had outside help, which I'm sure isn't really allowed) bitched about each others wardrobes and schnik schnak and generally delved into each others lives as the host sweated over the gulasch in the kitchen. Like I said, I watched the whole 150 minutes of it and can I remember who won? Not a hope!

What I should be watching instead I think is Saturday night's Supertalent, see what you think of it... personally I think it merely confirms my assertion that German tv is b******s...mind you I was impressed by the judge who put the guy through to the next round because he thought that it was what the viewers at home would want, I can see all those art classes springing up (snigger) now "paint with your penis" and "arse art". It was also amusing towards the end when the artist was asked how he cleaned his "brush", by drinking and peeing of course, silly question, like an Aussie needs an excuse to empty a few tinnies.
On second thoughts I don't think I want to add Germany's Supertalent show to my life, it seems to me to be rather like the old style freak shows that used to be part of the circus, take the woman with the rather large and aggressive boobs for example, she's really scarey, and then there's the self styled 'Mr Waterman', who drinks litres and litres of water just to spray them back up again.

Give me British telly anyday, even repeats have got to be better than this!