This week The Guardian TV Club review of Troy Kennedy Martin's seminal drama Edge Of Darkness (the television version not the Mel 'sugartits' Gibson film about to be unleashed upon on us) added further insult to the injury of their previous 'Top 50 Dramas Of All Time' article in which the series had already been dismissed as 'the hobby horse of fanatics'.
Naturally, this made a lot of ordinarily fluffy and mild mannered people rather cross. Including me. After venting my spleen on Twitter, the bat signal went up from the lovely Iain Hepburn, award winning digital journalist, and one of the purveyors of The Thumbcast blog. Give us a quote, he said.
Well, 1,630 words later, I did. And The Thumbcast posted the whole lot. A pleasure working with you, gentlemen. So, if you enjoy a decent bit of telly and felt the poncy TV crits got it absurdly wrong or The Guardian's reviewer John Crace didn't have a clue, then pop over and have a read. You might just return to your fluffy and mild mannered state but I couldn't guarantee it. I'm feeling better already...now where's Mark Lawson? I've got a bone to pick with him.
Thanks very much for this. EDGE OF DARKNESS is one of my favourite dramas of the time it was done.
I grew up enjoying works like EDGE. I must confess humbly that I don't get when THE WIRE is systematically used as a would-be juggernaut to disparage British television fiction (and my readers know I can be very harsh with bad Brit TV or bad TV in general).
There's just a view in the British media, particularly in The Guardian, that 'The Wire' is the best television show ever made and everything else pales into insignificance compared to it.
'The Wire' is great television but it isn't a series with an across the board audience appeal. And it engenders a snobbishness within its fans towards those that haven't seen it and those that criticise it.
Seasons three and four would try the patience of your average viewer because the story shifts into more complex ideas around local politics and education. Extremely well made but even David Simon, its creator, admits that only the hard core audience stuck with them till the end.
The Guardian's review of 'Edge Of Darkness' was more of an apology than a celebration of its brilliance. I just wish some reviewers weren't so blinkered about British television's legacy.