I’m 69 years old and I come from a generation (the so-called baby boomers generation) that expects certain things. One of those is that for the most part, television is free. I say for the most part because of course one has to buy an actual TV set, set up an aerial and pay for a TV licence. Apart from those minor things TV is comparatively free.
Tv programmes of course cost money, quite a lot of money in fact. Back in the 1990s when I was fresh from a video production course and hoping to actually get a job in the TV industry (I never did) I was told an hour of television costs £100,000. What it costs nowadays is anyone’s guess but then again, it’s so easy to make a TV show in 2026. One of my favourite programmes is Canal Boat Diaries, an entirely self-shot show which has graduated from YouTube onto the BBC and can be seen quite regularly on the U-Yesterday channel. Does that mean an hour of TV is worth more or less than that 90’s figure of £100,000?
There was once a time when I could settle back and watch all the current F1 races live for free but sadly, those pesky money-making F1 managers combined forces with their like-minded TV producers and decided they could make a little extra dosh by setting up the Sky F1 Channel and charging people to watch live F1. No thanks. I’ll carry on putting up with the Channel Four highlights until I either get bored with F1 or win the lottery.
Perhaps it’s then a little mean of me to sit back and expect free television. Times move on and instead of the two or even three channels I remember from my youth, today we have hundreds of channels. Even so, there are many evenings when I scroll through my channel listings only to find nothing worth watching.
That brings me to Netflix. Not so long ago when Liz renewed her Sky package, some negotiation was involved and to sweeten the deal, Sky threw in a Netflix subscription. I have to say I haven’t looked at Netflix much but I always assumed it was just an ordinary channel like BBC1 for instance, in that there was a schedule and certain programmes were broadcast at certain times. Not so, Netflix is more like YouTube, you can watch programmes on demand but what to watch, that is the question.
Some time ago Liz wanted to watch The Crown which I can’t say I was really interested in at first but after a while I realised what a really excellent production it is. The actors are really good especially the portrayals of the Queen, Princess Margaret and Winston Churchill.
The younger Queen was played by Claire Foy and Princess Margaret by Vanessa Kirkby and Margaret’s situation as the Queen’s sister was explored in a few episodes. Her love affair with Peter Townsend was doomed because Townsend was a divorcee. The Queen was advised to ask Margaret to wait until she was 25 and then she could marry. When the time came the Queen’s advisors brought up more issues and then ultimately the two lovers had to separate which of course didn’t help the sisterly relationship between the Queen and Margaret.
Before watching The Crown, I had no idea of the background of Prince Phillip. I always assumed he was English and a member of some family which was eligible to marry into the royals. In actual fact he was Greek and aged only eighteen months old he and his family were exiled from their homeland which left him with a lifetime fear of revolution and anything that might threaten the royal family.
His and Charles’ school days at Gordonstoun was really well done especially the interplay and flashbacks between Philip’s and his son Charles’ time there. Philip apparently loved it but Charles hated it.
A real stand out story was the one about the retirement of Churchill which was cleverly linked to the famous, or infamous painting of a portrait of Churchill by Graham Sutherland. Churchill played by John Lithgow, was coming up to his 80th birthday and various people wanted him to retire but he was adamant that he would carry on. Churchill had various sittings for the painting and the two, both of whom were artists, tried to examine the other through their works. Churchill was hugely disappointed at the result and came to see at last, according to The Crown anyway, that the time had come for him to retire and hand over the leadership of the country to Anthony Eden. Everything was beautifully done.
The other thing about The Crown was, even the quick cutaway and establishing shots of cars driving up to the Palace or through London in the 50s and 60s, were expertly done. I’m sure there was an element of special effects involved especially in scenes of crowds in London but even so, everything looked so good.
Another episode dramatised was the broadcast made by the Duke of Windsor when he abdicated. The Duke flips in and out of various episodes. The Queen Mother detested him as he had forced the mantle of kingship onto her husband when he was ill-prepared for it. Prince Charles however, did strike up a sort of friendship with the Duke. I should imagine that a former King and a future one would have much in common although how much was fiction and how much was accurate, I don’t know.
I thoroughly enjoyed this splendid series which I’m sure everyone has watched ages ago but for me, a latecomer to Netflix, is very new.
We watched The Crown last year while staying in the Loire valley even though we don’t normally watch much TV on holiday. This year in Lanzarote, we spent many an evening watching Emily in Paris, another Netflix show. I’d found it by searching on the internet for good TV shows to watch on Netflix and Emily came up so we thought we’d give it a go.
The series was created by producer Darren Star who was also the producer of Sex and the City and in some ways Emily in Paris is very similar to the early Sex and the City seasons. Emily was produced for the Paramount TV channel but made its way over to Netflix. It’s a light comedy show about a young girl, Emily, who is asked to move from Chicago to work in the Paris office of a marketing firm. The comedy comes about from highlighting the cultural differences between the USA and France and although the last season, season 5 was a little tame, the previous 4 seasons were excellent.
At the heart of the show is a love story. Emily falls for a young chef who has an apartment on the floor below her Paris flat. He falls for her too but he is engaged to another girl who befriends Emily. Later Emily gets involved with an British banker but then he falls for Emily’s other friend and then the chef’s girlfriend has a lesbian affair. See what I mean about Sex and the City?
According to Wikipedia, the show did get some criticism for stereotyping the French in general and Parisians in particular but for me I thought the depiction of the French was really quite good. Even though I speak only a little French, one of the things that is difficult for an Englishman in France is the speed at which the French speak. It’s not too bad in the Loire but especially noticeable in subtitled French films and TV shows.
What else have I watched on Netflix? Well, I did watch the film version of The Thursday Murder Club as I mentioned in another post a few weeks ago. Other than that, I haven’t watched much else. Netflix is a little overwhelming for me, I much prefer my TV in the old-fashioned way, regular broadcast times like they have on the traditional terrestrial channels.
Still, if Netflix is the TV of the future, I suppose I’d better get used to it!
Letters from an Unknown Author! 