Well, my emotions are all over the place in response to this news. Sam has marked the occasion with a piece illustrating his immense achievement in coming into the job with no understanding of television and maintaining that ignorance for no less than fourteen years.
It has been a decade and a half of writing off whole genres (science fiction "doesn't work"), failing to comprehend things about comedy that have remained constant since Aristophanes, sitting on the fence rather than passing an opinion whenever something unusual comes along before leaping wholeheartedly onto any Guardian critical bandwagon once it's been decided whether said show is GENIUS or APPALLING, and never getting distracted by the business of actually appraising a programme when there's an opportunity to talk about yourself and your worthless prejudices.
You can pick up any Sam Wollaston article and find evidence of what a twat he is, so we might as well use this one. His "guilty pleasure" is watching the Inbetweeners. Because what could be more sordid a secret than watching one of the most universally acclaimed, serial-award-winning shows of the last decade.
He goes on to say that his one mistake was saying the 2006 Robin Hood was good. Which is very modest of Sam, who makes a mistake every time he wakes up in the morning, but also ludicrous, because the piece presents said show as if it was a massive, universally agreed-on turkey (I know it's not his responsibility, but the photo caption even calls it "ill-fated"). I didn't ever watch it, but it ran for three series. It's hard getting something to run for three series. Several of the things that he lists as classics from his era didn't make it that far.
The list itself is extraordinarily bland - think of a big award winning show from the last decade, it'll be on there - except for the fact that it lists Ricky Gervais's embarrassing Extras twice, which sort of says it all.
Anyway, I've never been a big fan.
It has been a decade and a half of writing off whole genres (science fiction "doesn't work"), failing to comprehend things about comedy that have remained constant since Aristophanes, sitting on the fence rather than passing an opinion whenever something unusual comes along before leaping wholeheartedly onto any Guardian critical bandwagon once it's been decided whether said show is GENIUS or APPALLING, and never getting distracted by the business of actually appraising a programme when there's an opportunity to talk about yourself and your worthless prejudices.
You can pick up any Sam Wollaston article and find evidence of what a twat he is, so we might as well use this one. His "guilty pleasure" is watching the Inbetweeners. Because what could be more sordid a secret than watching one of the most universally acclaimed, serial-award-winning shows of the last decade.
He goes on to say that his one mistake was saying the 2006 Robin Hood was good. Which is very modest of Sam, who makes a mistake every time he wakes up in the morning, but also ludicrous, because the piece presents said show as if it was a massive, universally agreed-on turkey (I know it's not his responsibility, but the photo caption even calls it "ill-fated"). I didn't ever watch it, but it ran for three series. It's hard getting something to run for three series. Several of the things that he lists as classics from his era didn't make it that far.
The list itself is extraordinarily bland - think of a big award winning show from the last decade, it'll be on there - except for the fact that it lists Ricky Gervais's embarrassing Extras twice, which sort of says it all.
Anyway, I've never been a big fan.
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