take our minds off the fact that we’re perpetually getting older – to make the time pass pleasantly enough without reminding us that it’s finite. But, as its last act,
Millionaire
has done exactly the opposite. It provided me with a stinging reminder of the elusiveness of time and it made me feel old. That’s what elegiac dramas are meant to do, not quizzes.
In my head, you see, it was a recent programme – an example of the “terrible crap that’s on TV these days”. That’s where I had it filed: as a contemporary example of media commercialism, of ITV joyously dancing on the grave of
The World at War
and the Jeremy Brett
Sherlock Holmes
adaptations. So hearing that it’s been axed after a decade and a half, that it’s been put out of its misery after a long decline, feels like getting news that Google has called in the receivers or Justin Bieber needs a hip replacement. I open my eyes after a short nap to see the jungle-choked ruins of the Shard being fought over by a savage tribe of super-evolved molluscs.
When
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
started, I was not yet working in television – though that’s not what I was saying at the time. If you’d asked me then, the very last thing I would have said is: “I’m a delusional waster with a second-class degree in a humanity and an inability to take an alarm clock seriously. I’ve been to the Edinburgh Fringe and done a lot of amateur dramatics, but basically I work as an usher for less than what the minimum wage will be when it comes in next year.” That was the inconvenient truth, but instead of telling it I would haveclaimed to be a comedian and pitched the various hungover scribblings that I pretended to be convinced would soon conjure up a generous living.
Well, somehow, in the midst of my bullshit, a career germinated; I got lucky and so got paid. But, in 1998, I was still terrified and resentful of the vast and impenetrable media in which I aspired to prosper. And
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
seemed to represent all that – it was the thick and immovable taproot of my problems.
All the cosiness of the TV I’d grown up with, all that “Well, of course it has far too much sentimental value for us to consider parting with it!”
Antiques Roadshow
propriety, seemed to have been blasted away by this huge, frightening, mercenary format. The
Blankety Blank
chequebook and pen, the his-and-hers matching wristwatches, even the star-prize speedboat had been pressure-hosed off our screens with cash. The future of TV was a series of mediocrities hungrily grasping at unimaginable sums of money by the ghoulish light of a monitor – they might as well televise a trading floor. Censorious and broke, I took a dim view.
So my younger self would probably be pleased at the programme’s passing. But the demise of seemingly invincible entities of which you disapprove is not always reassuring. It can make you feel vulnerable – like nothing is safe. Of course, I can think of reasons for
Millionaire
’s downfall. Ultimately, its success depended on the suspense generated by ordinary people trying to become very rich. Someone genuinely becoming a millionaire on television is very watchable – for the first time. It’s not bad the second. But, after a bit, a contestant’s path to victory is like another
Jaws
sequel. We know how the story goes. The tension on which the programme relied was inevitably going to slacken over time.
The attempt to enliven the format with celebrities raising money for charities was deeply flawed. The crucial drama-generatingingredient of a member of the public trying to transform their circumstances is removed. The celebrity stands to gain nothing personally and, even if they win a million, unless they’re campaigning for a fairly trivial cause, that huge amount will disappear into the bottomless pit of one or other of humanity’s insoluble crises. It’s not like, if they win, cancer will be cured or Africa will be fine or drugs
Millionaire
has done exactly the opposite. It provided me with a stinging reminder of the elusiveness of time and it made me feel old. That’s what elegiac dramas are meant to do, not quizzes.
In my head, you see, it was a recent programme – an example of the “terrible crap that’s on TV these days”. That’s where I had it filed: as a contemporary example of media commercialism, of ITV joyously dancing on the grave of
The World at War
and the Jeremy Brett
Sherlock Holmes
adaptations. So hearing that it’s been axed after a decade and a half, that it’s been put out of its misery after a long decline, feels like getting news that Google has called in the receivers or Justin Bieber needs a hip replacement. I open my eyes after a short nap to see the jungle-choked ruins of the Shard being fought over by a savage tribe of super-evolved molluscs.
When
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
started, I was not yet working in television – though that’s not what I was saying at the time. If you’d asked me then, the very last thing I would have said is: “I’m a delusional waster with a second-class degree in a humanity and an inability to take an alarm clock seriously. I’ve been to the Edinburgh Fringe and done a lot of amateur dramatics, but basically I work as an usher for less than what the minimum wage will be when it comes in next year.” That was the inconvenient truth, but instead of telling it I would haveclaimed to be a comedian and pitched the various hungover scribblings that I pretended to be convinced would soon conjure up a generous living.
Well, somehow, in the midst of my bullshit, a career germinated; I got lucky and so got paid. But, in 1998, I was still terrified and resentful of the vast and impenetrable media in which I aspired to prosper. And
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
seemed to represent all that – it was the thick and immovable taproot of my problems.
All the cosiness of the TV I’d grown up with, all that “Well, of course it has far too much sentimental value for us to consider parting with it!”
Antiques Roadshow
propriety, seemed to have been blasted away by this huge, frightening, mercenary format. The
Blankety Blank
chequebook and pen, the his-and-hers matching wristwatches, even the star-prize speedboat had been pressure-hosed off our screens with cash. The future of TV was a series of mediocrities hungrily grasping at unimaginable sums of money by the ghoulish light of a monitor – they might as well televise a trading floor. Censorious and broke, I took a dim view.
So my younger self would probably be pleased at the programme’s passing. But the demise of seemingly invincible entities of which you disapprove is not always reassuring. It can make you feel vulnerable – like nothing is safe. Of course, I can think of reasons for
Millionaire
’s downfall. Ultimately, its success depended on the suspense generated by ordinary people trying to become very rich. Someone genuinely becoming a millionaire on television is very watchable – for the first time. It’s not bad the second. But, after a bit, a contestant’s path to victory is like another
Jaws
sequel. We know how the story goes. The tension on which the programme relied was inevitably going to slacken over time.
The attempt to enliven the format with celebrities raising money for charities was deeply flawed. The crucial drama-generatingingredient of a member of the public trying to transform their circumstances is removed. The celebrity stands to gain nothing personally and, even if they win a million, unless they’re campaigning for a fairly trivial cause, that huge amount will disappear into the bottomless pit of one or other of humanity’s insoluble crises. It’s not like, if they win, cancer will be cured or Africa will be fine or drugs
Similar Books
