What I've been watching (and not watching)

(First published in the Manawatu Standard and on Stuff.co.nz, March 4.)

There’s a dismal daily ritual in our house. I glance at The Listener to see what’s on TV and gloomily pronounce to my wife, “Nothing to see tonight”.

It’s so utterly predictable that I don’t know why I bother.

Here’s a typical example, chosen at random from one night’s programmes: on TVNZ1, or whatever it calls itself this week, Location, Location, Location, followed by Living with the Boss; on TVNZ2, The Bachelorette NZ; on Three, Married at First Sight Australia; on Prime, Traffic Cops followed by Ambulance.

That was a Wednesday. On other nights in prime time we could have watched Dog Squad Puppy School, My Dream Home, Escape to the Chateau – DIY, Booze Patrol, Zumbo’s Just Desserts, Shipping Wars, The Undateables and Restoration Home. 

Oh, and I shouldn’t forget Survivor in its many endless permutations, MasterChef (ditto), The Bachelor, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, The Great British Bake Off, Say Yes to the Dress, Embarrassing Bodies, Wife Swap and of course Big Brother, which started the whole wretched ball rolling.

Most are described as reality shows. Yeah, right: they put people in contrived and stressful situations, point cameras at them and expect us to accept that their consequent behaviour represents something called reality.

Some such shows are openly voyeuristic. Others revel in the humiliation of their subjects or exploit their psychological, emotional and even physical vulnerability. John Logie Baird would probably want to throw himself off a tall building if he were alive to see the debasement of the medium he invented. 

Needless to say, most of the above-mentioned shows are from overseas and tell us nothing about New Zealand.

I’m proud to say I’ve never wasted 30 minutes of my life watching any of them. And to those who ask how I can condemn shows I haven’t watched, my answer is that I know enough about them to regard them with utter contempt.

True, there are a few “reality” shows that can claim some authenticity. Piha Rescue, Life Flight, Border Patrol and RPA (for Melbourne’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital) at least show people in real-life situations, although we can never be entirely sure that what’s happening on screen isn’t influenced by the presence of a film crew. Neither do we know what might have been left out for one reason or another.

But hang on; things are not as dire as they might seem, because one benefit of the multi-headed monster we call digital technology is that we have other options besides old-fashioned, steam-powered, free-to-air TV.

You may have to burrow through piles of dross to find them, but there are gems lurking on the streaming platforms Netflix, Lightbox and Freeview. There are three in particular that I’ve enjoyed recently, and oddly enough they all have religious themes.

The quirky Shtisel, on Netflix, takes some getting used to but rewards patience. It’s an Israeli drama series (the dialogue is all in Hebrew, with subtitles) that revolves around the affairs of a strict Orthodox Jewish family in Jerusalem. 

It’s a soap opera, essentially, but superbly done – and like all good soap operas, it draws you into the lives of its flawed but very human characters. As a bonus, you get a fascinating insight into a religion and lifestyle alien to New Zealanders.

Then there’s Ramy, which you can find on Freeview (though I see it’s now also on TVNZ1). The likeable title character in this often wickedly irreverent American series is a young Muslim man living in New Jersey and trying valiantly, but not always successfully, to live according to his religion’s moral code.

What’s amazing about Ramy is that it was made at all, given the sensitivity surrounding the Islamic faith and the deference shown to it by most Western media. Many of the Muslims in Ramy are greedy, selfish, hypocritical and profane. They take drugs and indulge in illicit sex. In other words, they display the same weaknesses as the rest of us.

My third religious-themed series is more conventional but packs an immensely powerful emotional wallop. In Broken (Freeview), Sean Bean plays a Catholic priest wrestling with his own problems while conscientiously trying his best to serve a troubled working-class parish in a city in the north of England.

Created by Jimmy McGovern, who gave us the memorable Cracker in the 1990s, it’s an ineffably sad series in parts and more than once left me feeling like a wrung-out rag. Bean is outstanding, giving a pitch-perfect performance that convinced me he must have had a Catholic upbringing himself (he didn’t).

Three drama series, three very different religions; but the common factor is the flawed humanity of the characters, who somehow manage to defy the bizarre religious strictures governing their daily lives.

I’m not going to urge readers to watch these shows, because it’s a big mistake to assume that everyone shares common tastes. I can only say that Shtisel, Broken and Ramy tell us a good deal more about the human condition than Married at First Sight Australia.