threemonkeys | Brian Cox for pope (Reply)

I like to watch documentaries on TV - particularly science and history doccos. When I say "like" I really mean "want to like". It is actually a pretty frustrating business. First of all a lot (the majority) of the documentaries are pitched too dumb and too slow for me to enjoy. I watch documentaries to learn and there isn't either learning or enjoyment when the info is too basic and presented at a slow dribble. But I can forgive that with the "I'm not the target market" argument. The other problem is bad presenters. Some voiceover people or their producers seem to think that the material is too boring on its own and they have to "jazz it up" by injecting fake enthusiasm or suspense into the narrative. It never ever works. It just takes me out of the flow of the narrative and actually irritates me more than a little. Whenever I encounter such a voiceover I shut the show off immediately - why put up with that rubbish. Good narration should be by somebody who appears to be genuinely interested and engaged in the material - this is why Brian Cox, Jim Al-Khalili or Michael Wood are so entertaining. They don't have to be professionals in the field either - any Ken Burns documentary shows that professional voice artists can do the job as well if properly directed.

Why this rant? Well it seems that Fox and National Geographic are planning to make a new updated version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I watched the old Cosmos again recently and it really does need updating. A lot has happened since 1980. But the involvement of these two networks does worry me. They are amongst the worst when it comes to unwatchable documentaries. Paradoxically, the involvement of Seth "Family Guy" MacFarlane is actually a positive sign.