The drone shots and pseudo-cinematic approach are now ubiquitous. A Hollywoid action-movie aesthetic, complete with crashing music, has basically replaced the European overtones of British documentar… (View Post)

Yes. Michael Checkland came in in the late 1980"s, because Thatcher hated Alasdair Milne, and his fascinating mix of the patrician and liberal, and began to change the direction, but it was real… (View Post)

This sort of banal programme-making is key to what changed in the BBC from the later 1990's onwards. Many younger people simply have no idea of the quality of documentaries that Brutain used to be fa… (View Post)

Yes. He's getting better and more mature, but ironically not signed up by the BBC any more as a standard-bearer, which sums up the current fear of subtlety and complexity. (View Post)

Michael Palin's Iraq is currently on Channel 5, which, not that widely known, is some of his best ever work. Mature and complex, and reminiscent of the older British documentary tradition. (View Post)