Looking Out To Sea

I’ve just finished Screen Burn, the collection of Charlie Brooker’s TV review columns from the Guardian, collected in book form. In short, if you like Charlie Brooker then you’ll like this.

It was quite interesting for me because it’s been several years since I was a regular TV watcher. Even then, I was never interested in the soaps or reality TV shows for the most part. (With noted exceptions of the hilarity that TMF would occasionally show during the day. Jessica Simpson really is that absurd.) Reading Screen Burn allowed me to live through the worst of dumbed-down TV broadcasting without actually having to watch it.

Most of the programmes were stuff that I have already seen or was not interested in catching. Except when Charlie Brooker gets very excited about 24 about halfway through the book, then the second season comes around — and then the third! The one I haven’t seen! I actually caught a teeny spoiler for the third season completely by accident. I just glanced at the page and bang the information was in my head.

There were a few shows which got excellent reviews but I had never heard of and seem not to have made a big impact. No second series, no transfer to BBC2 from the hinterlands of BBC4.

But mostly, I just read it for the witty rage that is brought to bear on so much of the tedious television programmes. The kind of stuff that I no longer watch.